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THE UNIVERSITY OF 
NORTH CAROLINA 
LIBRARY 


THE LIBRARY OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF 
NORTH CAROLINA 


ENDOWED BY THE 
DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
SOCIETIES 


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UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HIL 


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HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


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STAR BOOK , 


HAUNCH, PAUNCH 
AND JOWL. 


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BY 
SAMUEL ORNITZ 


GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. 


GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK 


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Copyright, 1923, by 
Bont AND LIVERIGHT, INC. 


All rights reserved 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 


FIRST PERIOD 


Nine Years Old: Fourteenth Leader of Our Gang, 
Seminary Student and Animal of Unreasonable 
Smell; Can Read the Dialect Christ Spoke But Not 
a Gentleman. The Last Lullaby. 


SECOND PERIOD : : catty we A ah ae 


Twelve Years Old. Melamud Mordecai. Cheder. 
Gang Pals and Bookish Boys. Civil War. War 
with the Gentiles. An Army Marches Under a 
Tin Roof. The Hingkidike Shammos (Limping 
Beadle). Allen Street Mysteries. Rabbi Zucker 
Denounces the Brothels. Bar Mitzvah (Confirma- 
tion). : 


THIRD PERIOD . . . : : A . 65 


Girl-Crazy. Good-bye, School Cinch. City Col- 
lege. Over the River. Police Court. Shyster’s 
Runner. Jews Are Not Jews: They Are American 
Jews, German Jews, English, Galician, Lithuanian, 
and so on, Geographically, Jews. Gretel, My First 
Love. Die Unie (The Union). Philip Discovers 
the Road to Wealth Is Paved With the Backs of 
Workers and the Secret of the German Jews’ Suc- 
cess. A Little Genealogy: Grandfather Was a 
Horse Thief. 


C7] 


CONTENTS 


FOURTH PERIOD : : : te s - 107 


Eighteen. I Madly Love Esther; Yet I Still Need 
Gretel. A Singing Waiter in a Chinatown 
Dance Hall. ‘‘Piano’’ O’Brien. ‘‘Sweet Rosie 
O’Grady,’’ Latinized and Palistrinated, Becomes 
a Solemn Mass Cantata. The Art of Appropri- 
ating Melodies. America’s New Music: African 
Rhythm with Semitic Coloring. The Marriage, 
Death and Burial of Davie Solomon. The Talkers’ 
Café. Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) Picnic 
and Riot. Big Jim Hallorhan. Boy Campaigners 
and Voters. 


FIFTH PERIOD . : ; : : . +p Low 


Lawyer, Politician, Professional Jew. Mother, My 
Respect-Saving Screen, Says I Am the Goat’s 
Child. Lips That Melt in Mine and the Spirit That 
Scorns Me. Sedatives for the Hysterical Race. 
Are Jews Paranoiacs and Neurasthenics? Inbreed- 
ing and Intermarriage. Strikes: Wherein Gunmen 
Serve the Sacred Cause of Capital and the Holy 
War of Labor. How Philip Beats the German 
Jews. Big Jim Rewards Me With the Brooklyn 
Bridge Pickpocket Privilege. How Martyrs Die. 
Ambition Is My Undying Desire. 


SIXTH PERIOD . : ‘ . . 245 


The Jewish Four Hundred: Philip Horns In and 
Picks a Prize Moron: Pedigree’s the Thing. Chris- 
tian Science, Ethical Culture, New Thought and 
Unitarian Churches Harbor Israel’s Spiritual 
Changelings. They say Esther Married for Money. 


[8] 


CONTENTS 


The Blackmail Boost Up to the High Place. Judge 
of the Superior Criminal Court. 


SEVENTH PERIOD : : : . : . 285 


Exeunt Philip . Ancestors to Lap Dogs. My 
Political Career Stifled by a Still Scandal. Margot 
of the Movies. Haunch-Paunch-and-Jowl. Finis: 
What’s It All About? Wauart! 


[9] 


Fee 88 
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note 


fanny 
i 


FIRST PERIOD 


All men... who have done anything of 
excellence ... ought... to describe their 
life with their own hand. 

BENVENUTO CELLINI. 


a 


f 4 


HAUNCH PAUNCH 
AND JOWL 


FIRST PERIOD 
I 


I begin my history. I want to tell everything. 
Everything: so that even if I tell pathological lies the 
truth will shine out like grains of gold in the upturned 
muck. ...I grope for first definite memories. 

Early childhood is a mist world: fantastic and fear- 
ful, glamorous and grotesque. One is not really born 
into life until one breaks through this fine-webbed 


cocoon of vagueness. ... I am nine; that stands out 
fully and firmly blocked. . . . Ramshackle New York 
during the sprawling awkward age of its growth... . 


A keen December evening. Gas lamps burning orange 
beacons upon the blue sea of a wintry night. I am re- 
turning from cheder (Hebrew School). 

I close the door behind me. The kerosene lamp with 
its sooty chimney and ragged wick smokes more than 
ever. It stands high on a shelf and its uncertain light 
makes a foggy etching of our kitchen ... blurred 
charcoal figures of mother and father and Uncle Philip 
seated close by the cook-stove drinking tea... and 
of the furnishings, exaggerated silhouettes. . 

Throwing my books on a chair I snatch up the huge 
slab of bread and the apple mother laid out for me 
and without a word start for the street. I am ina 
hurry to join the Ludlow Street Gang. Just yesterday 

[13] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


I was admitted to its glorious ranks as the fourteenth 
leader. I was not Leader the Fourteenth, but of the 
whole gang fourteenth in prowess and importance. 
However, I had only thirteen superiors. Being the 
lowest step in the ladder I was most frequently trod 
upon; but it was sweet suffering, the travail of a 
hero. . . . When I became a Ludlow Streeter I swept 
away the last rag of swaddling clothes and life became 
real....So I hurry away, silently, detachedly, as 
a man of importance. ... But Uncle Philip’s voice 
halts me. Meanwhile, I am busy munching the apple. 
Here is Uncle Philip lecturing like a Rabbi on a fast 
day. He intimidates: not he, but his way of speaking 
Yiddish. It is not just Yiddish—guttural, jargonish, 
haphazard; but an arresting, rhythmical, logical lan- 
guage. ... Yiddish, the lingo of greenhorns, was held 
in contempt by the Ludlow Streeters who felt mightily 
their Americanism. Yet even the gang fought shy of 
making fun of the green Uncle Philip for he had a 
way of accompanying his Yiddish with gestures that 
left smarting memories. 

““Nu, yeshiva bochar (seminary student), what 
says one? So, like a wanton puff,—in and out. A grab 
and gone. Fertig! (Done). And now what of your 
social duties, your filial respects! What are you aim- 
ing tobe? Amanformen? Ora drayman, companion 
of horses? Really, what says one?”’ 

“‘Tahke, what says one?’’ interrupts kindly, chiding 
mamma. 

My mouth is chockful of bread and apple and I 
nearly choke with indignation when she calls me by my 
hateful love name—‘‘Ziegelle’’ (little goat). 

Papa looks on in his brooding way, hunched in his 

[14] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


chair, as always too tired and spent to talk. His eyes 
light gratefully on the young and vigorous Philip, 
family mentor, whom he idealizes and loves so 
much ... just as though he were not his brother-in- 
law. Philip, he says, is his star of hope showing the 
way out of the wilderness—the sweatshop. 

‘‘Remember,’’ quoth Philip in his best manner of 
Talmudical harangue, ‘‘gone are the diaper days. This 
day you are nine.’’. . . Follows a solemn pause... . 
““Tomorrow begins your tenth year ‘4 

‘<The tenth year. Long years to you, Ziegelle.’’ 

Ziegelle! ziegelle! Eternally, the little goat. The 
curse of my life. The Ludlow Streeters know me by 
no other name. They greet me with ‘‘maa, maa’’ and 
tug my chin as though pulling a beard.... A love 
name indeed! Other children did not have to put up 
with an insulting diminutive, a la Russe. They were 
called, say poppale (little father) or zadelle (little 
grandfather), or hertzalle (little heart), but I, only 
I was marked for scorn as the little goat. Wherefore? 

Philip rose and placed his glass on the table. We 
did not boast saucers at that time. With a gallant bow 
he took mother’s glass. Father continues to gnaw a 
lump of sugar and draw tea from his glass with a com- 
placent hiss. .. . As Philip moves between the lamp 
and the table shadows dance on the wall, shadows that 
take the shape of goats cavorting at my discomfiture. 
And I want to throw things at them. 

‘‘Meyer,’’ says Philip, raising an impressive finger, 
‘‘remember that learning without breeding is like a 
kugel (pudding) without gribbenes (rendered chicken 
fat). Itis food without flavor: so with a man, a fellow 
without favor.’’ 


[15] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘‘Gee,’’ I plead in English, ‘‘I ain’t got time for 
everything.’’ 

A quick reproving gesture menaces me to silence. 

‘‘Speak to me momme loschen (mother tongue) not 
that nasty gibberish of the streets.’’ 

Again he humiliates me—he—the greenhorn. He 
knows I am not speaking genteel American. ) 

I make a plea .. . in Yiddish . . . and because my 
phrasing is facile, mother smiles proudly and even 
Uncle Philip’s stern demeanor softens. 

‘¢ All day I have been in English school, and then in 
cheder all evening, and I want to play with the boys 
a little bit. And it was hard in cheder today, for I had 
to read a page of Targum and Rashi without even one 
mistake. 

Mother beams... . ‘‘Nicht schlecht (not bad), nu 
what say you, Philip? And only nine.’’ 

‘“‘But your studies are not done,’’ says Philip. ‘“‘A 
lesson in manners is never out of place. Remember, 
Meyer, no matter how wealthy, no matter how learned, 
you will be as nothing if not a gentleman.’’ The last 
word he enunciates sharply in English. 

‘What is that—that a gentleman?”’ I ask. 

‘‘A gentleman. Ah! <A gentleman—hem—is a per- 
son whom you cannot exactly describe—hum—but 
whom you know to be a gentleman the second you set 
eyes on him.’’. . . He looks at me steadily, expect- 
antly, but my face is blank with ignorance. 

‘<Then, Uncle Philip, I won’t know what it is a— 
gentleman—till I see one.”’ 

‘‘Not until then, Meyer.”’ 

‘‘All right,’’ I offer conciliatingly, ‘‘I will be on 

[16 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the watch out for one.’’... But Philip seems dis- 
appointed. 

*‘So, Meyer,’’ he muses, ‘‘so, you can read the old 
F'rench-Hebrew text of Rashi and Aramic Targum, the 
dialect that Christ spoke, but you know not a gentle- 
man—so.”’ 

‘‘Christ spoke it,’? I whisper in a cautious echo, 
reluctant to utter the forbidden name. 

Mother flutters in alarm. Father stirs uneasily. 

‘‘Brother,’’ she says, ‘‘mention not the unspeak- 
able one.’’ 

‘Bah, unmentionable, why, why keep the boy igno- 
rant——’’ | 

“‘T am not ignorant, Uncle Philip, although you can’t 
expect me to know a gentleman when I never even 
saw one.’’ 

‘‘And then,’’ demands Philip with apparent dis- 
pleasure, ‘‘am I not a gentleman?’’ 

‘“No, you are my Uncle Philip.’’ 

‘*So it is,’’? mutters Philip, ‘‘because I am your 
ancle.’’ , 

He takes a small notebook from his pocket and hold- 
ing it up says, ‘‘Observe, Meyer, this booklet, it is 
entirely given over to your affairs.’’ He turns to the 
first leaf and reads, ‘‘Notes upon the education of my 
nephew, Meyer Hirsch.’’ Then, using his knee as a 
rest, writes and reads aloud at the same time. ‘‘Item 
one: Family Pride.’’ 


[17] 


It 


The gang is at the corner huddled about a wood fire 
in a grocer’s milk can with large holes cut out for vents. 
It is a compact circle seated shoulder to shoulder on 
assorted boxes. I long, passionately, to be part of it 
and hear the grave and grim pow-wow of the chieftains, 
and share the pungent promise of potatoes baking in 
the embers. ... I hover, hopefully, and scrape my 
feet, and place a suppliant hand on the shoulder of the 
humblest of the gathering, the thirteenth leader, but he 
puts it off with a quick shrug... a terrible feeling 
of being left out in the cold ... and I become angry, 
and a daring idea is born. . . . I pull Hymie, the twelfth 
leader, from his place. ... Words are not needed; 
the challenge speaks volumes. ... Ascrap! Partisan 
cries—‘‘Give it to him, Hymie’’; ‘‘Use your left’’; 
“‘Come on, nannie-goat, butt him in the kischkes 
{guts).’? ... The surprise attack gives me an edge 
on him, and soon Hymie is persuaded to relinquish his 
place at the fire and the twelfth leadership. And the 
thirteenth leader by inaction and silence abdicates 
his right. Thus I dispose of two enemies by first van- 
quishing the stronger. ... My first victory ... my 
first seat at the fire ...andI tingle with joy.... 
And then came the potatoes. What if they were 
charred. A feast of feasts. ... I thrill to the talk of 
war, war on the nearest clan, the Essex Street Guer- 
rillas. . . . Says Boolkie, in manner and tone cryptic, 
as fitting a first leader, ‘‘Don’t take none of their guff. 
We’ll give them what for any time they wants it.’’ . 
The fire is now a mellow glow of embers. ... A sud- 

[18 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


den alarm! A lookout shrilly warns: ‘‘A shammos! 
A shammos!’’ (Synagogue beadle. In the secret lingo 
of the gang shammos was the warning that a policeman 
was coming). Whereupon, the indomitable clan of 
Ludlow Streeters scatters in all directions. 

I fly to the cellar of our house, where works and lives 
Berel, a fixer of harness. Berel smiles at my head- 
long, breathless entry. He sits before his bench mend- 
ing reins. Lutz, the shicker goy (drunken Gentile), 
seated on a box, is laboriously sewing up a rent in his 
pants. He is the local Shabbos (Sabbath) fire lighter 
and lodges with Berel. These two and Yoshke the 
Golitzianer (Galician), a peddler, sleep in this small 
cellar workroom. Yoshke is already asleep on a couch 
with a sagging belly. Lutz beds on the floor and Berel 
boasts a cot. 

I like Berel. He doesn’t talk to me: he talks with 
me. He is a teller of tales, tales of the forests and 
fields of his sunny and verdant Bessarabia. And he is 
a wit, but always kindly. For instance, as now, he 
never neglects to greet me as a grown-up, not ironi- 
cally, but caressingly, ‘‘What make you, (How are 
you) Reb (Mr.) Meyer?’’ 

‘‘Ollaright, a pretty thanks to you for asking, Reb 
Berel.’’ 

‘‘Is it from a bear you are running, or has your 
shadow tripped you in the dark alley?’’ 

‘*Oh, no, I have not a fear of such things. I just 
escaped from a policeman.’’ I confide proudly. 

He whistles and smacks his lips in awesome tribute 
to my daredeviltry. ‘‘Sit you down here, sit on this 
saddle, my adventurous friend, you must be tired.’’ 

I watch Berel sewing thongs of leather. . . . ‘‘Those 


[19 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


reins you are fixing, I guess must be for a little pony.”’ 

““No, Meyer, they are for a goat.’’ 

A goat, . . . the very mention of my bearded nemesis 
is enough to spoil this glorious night. 

“‘T guess you know all about horses, don’t you, 
Berel?’’ 

‘Yes, something.’’ 

‘Do you know all about goats, too?”’ 

‘‘Yes, when I was a boy I used to take care of herds 
of goats.’’ 

‘‘T™hen tell me, Berel, be so good, what’s the matter 
nobody likes a goat and everybody makes fun of them.’’ 

‘‘Wirst place, nothing bothers a goat and that makes 
people angry. A goat manages to get along where any 
other creature would perish. Stubble, twigs, anything 
is food and nourishment for him. He is a sidestepper, 
can walk a narrow ledge or a fence, if need be. He is 
for himself; unfeeling, and befriends no one. An unlik- 
able, ugly thing with a most unreasonable smell. And 
I have noticed that a goat is the only thing ridicule 
ean’t kill.’ 

Surely a pleasing portrait of my namesake, and it 
made me despondent. . . . Lutz, done with his stitch- 
ing, stares vacantly at the lamp. Berel is busy with an 
awl. Suddenly, Yoshke shrieks in his sleep, one word 
piteous, imploring, ‘‘Mommale’’ (little mother). 

Berel putters away and Lutz stares, unblinkingly, 
and the silence is of a tomb. 

‘““Mommale, mommale,’’ hums Berel under his 
breath, ‘‘scheine mommale,’’ in the minor tones of a 
Yom Kippur chant. (Little mother, little mother, 
lovely little mother). 

[ 20 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


I watch Yoshke in shocked surprise: here is a 
bearded man crying in his sleep for his mother. 

‘Poor Yoshke,’’ says Berel with a sigh. ‘‘Yoshke 
was hurt today, Yoshke who is as gentle asalamb.... 
A policeman felled him to the ground.’’ 

**A policeman! Yes? What for?’’ 

‘*Yoshke had no more than taken his place with his 
pushcart on Hester Street when the policeman came 
around to collect the graft, a quarter a day from each 
peddler. Yoshke begged the policeman to wait a little 
while until he could get money from customers, ex- 
plaining that he had spent his last cent on a stock of 
potatoes. The policeman’s answer was to club him 
to the gutter.’’ 

Yoshke stirred fitfully. 

‘‘He’s got no one, Yoshke, and he’s as gentle as a 
lamb, and I’m thinking it’s not a world for lambs.”’ . . 

And he smiled at me, sadly, sagely, ‘‘I think, Meyer, 
I think a goat has a got a better chance in this world.’’ 


[21] 


Til 


Uncle Philip is asleep on the sofa in the kitchen and 
mother dozes by the stove against my return. 

‘<So late, Meyer, so late and tomorrow you must be 
up early for school.’’ 

‘¢Aw, it ain’t so late,’’ I remark with the diffidence 
of a twelfth leader. 

In the smoky glow of the expiring lamp, mother’s 
beckoning arms become monstrous shadows on the 
whitewashed walls. I watch the shadows, wondering 
if they will turn into goats. ... Mother whispers, 
‘‘Come to me, child, mine, come now and sit here,’’ 
drawing me to her lap, which act I resist as offensive 
to a person of my years and station. I pull away, 
reminding mamma, sharply, ‘‘Say, I ain’t a baby no 
more.’’... Ridiculous. ... What would Boolkie think 
of such a performance? His twelfth leader—a lap 
baby. . . . Mother smiles . . . a coughlike sob in her 
voice ... and tears glisten on her fine long lashes. 
‘*Mewn ben yochtd (my only son), always, you will be my 
baby, always.’’ . . . 1 am drawn tenderly to her bosom 
and her face nestles on my head... . I am annoyed: 
mother’s hair tickles my forehead. ... ‘‘Mein teir 
giegelle (my beloved little goat).’’... I become rigid 
with resentment. 

‘‘Mamma, I don’t want you to call me ziegelle no 
more. I’ve got a regular name, haven’t I?’’ 

“Don’t you like your pet name?’’ 

‘‘No. Everybody makes fun of me. Don’t call me 
that any more.’’ 

[22] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘‘Only tonight, this night only,’’ she whispers sooth- 
ingly, ‘‘I will call you ztegelle: this night of your birth 
and nevermore.’’ And she cries, which amazes me; 
embraces me, and bespatters my face with kisses. 
Quite a fuss over nothing, I think, and a nice climax to 
a heroic evening. 

“‘Oh, mein teir (my darling), you should not dislike 
the goat—a goat saved your life.’’ 

‘‘Saved my life?’’ 

‘*You may say it, mein hertz (my heart) saved your 
life! A goat was your wet nurse.”’ 

What ascandal.... The gang must never know... . 
And I swear mother to secrecy. But I beg for the 
story. 

‘‘But ten days before you were born, papa was called 
to the military ... toserve the Tsar .. . and he made 
up his mind to run away to America, and I would not 
let father go alone. ... Three days out from Ham- 
burg . . . in the bowels of a sailing vessel . . . while 
it seemed we were tumbling into a pit inthe deep... 
you were born. . .. Worry and seasickness and 
fright. . . . [had no milk for my baby . . . and there 
was no milk on board. And we wept over you as for 
the dead and lighted candles as for the dead. . . . Until 
there happened a miracle.... A miracle.... The 
seamen’s pet, a she-goat with udders plump with milk, 
escaped from her quarters and came wandering in the 


steerage. . . . And the she-goat suckled my baby and 
he lived to see the promised land. . . . And so here you 
are, mein giegelle....” 


And mother gathered me to her bosom in a transport 
of joy and gently rocked me to sleep, singing, tremu- 


[ 23 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


lously, a lullaby, a lullaby oft sung but now crooned for 
the last time— 


‘“‘Onter der viegelle 
Shtait em weisse ziegelle, 
Ooh, ooh, ooh, i 
(Under the little crib stands a little white kid.) 


[ 24% 


SECOND PERIOD 


Neither to him nor his brothers or sisters 
was religion real, 


Henry Apams 


SECOND PERIOD 
I 


Three years ... bad times ... hunger years.... 
Yet the great rush continues like a stampede. Droves 
of hungry and hounded and despairing people from 
Fastern and Southern Europe crowd into a new Ghetto 
of tenements and sweatshops. 

Every little home is congested with its quota of 
boarders, the men who left wives and children behind 
to seek their fortune in the Land of Gold. 

Grocers, butchers, peddlers and buttonhole-makers 
turn bankers and steamship ticket agents overnight. 
Everybody is saving to buy a shif carte (ship ticket) 
for wife or child or brother or sweetheart. 

And all these newcomers, men, women, boys and 
girls are immediately drafted into the needle industries 
to become, as Uncle Philip says, slaves to the German 
Jews, masters of the wearing apparel enterprises. 

Night after night Philip is engrossed in his books, 
passionate as a lover, untiring as an alchemist seeking, 
seeking the secret of—gold. And every day, as our 
poverty deepens, he swears that soon, soon, to be sure, 
he will deliver us from bondage; that he is on the verge 
of discovering the secret of the German Jews’ riches. 
And, to me it has now become as unlikely and chimeri- 
cal as the daily legend I con in cheder—the imminent 
delivery of Israel from exile and his return to the Land 
of Milk and Honey. ... Mother, I daresay, discour- 
aged by the utter lack of tisch gelt (table money), 

[27] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


is openly dubious, but father’s hope does not wane. 
There is nothing else left, he says, but to hope. He is 
a broken man, silent and withdrawn from the world, 
and apparently life is sustained in him by the oxygen 
of Philip’s airy promises. 

There is little work. Labor is too plentiful. The 
manufacturers know it and squeeze the contractors, 
who in turn squeeze that dry thing, a day’s wage. And 
labor knows only one thing—one must live, and accepts 
anything. But Philip is always busy .. . libraries, 
lectures, exploring the city, listening to every kind of 
person. ... When there is work in the clothing 
factory, the short seasonal, body-destroying rush, he 
sits at his sewing machine, alongside of father, twelve 
hours, fourteen hours, and thinks nothing of a twenty- 
hour stint. ... But always returning hungrily to his 
books . . . books that make him despair and ery out im 
anguish. I have seen him clutch volumes to his breast 
and groan: ‘‘Oh, how ignorant [am....’’ A mad- 
ness is over him: a madness of envy and lust .. . and 
how he hates the German Jews, they who look down 
upon Russian Jews as an animal, apart; they who are 
proud, powerful and rich. . . . And daily Philip warns 
me... ‘‘Meyer, Meyer, remember a laborer is lost, 
adog. Never bealaborer. Let others labor for you—. 
there’s the trick—that’s brain work, that’s clever- 
ness——’’... And father repeats solemnly as though 
pointing to himself as a horrible example: ‘‘Don’t be 
a workman—anything else—but don’t be a dog of a 
workman. ...’’ But mother is wishing me an evil 
fate. Just because I am doing well in cheder she has 
a fervent ambition in my behalf—wants me to be a 
Rabbi. But, thank goodness, Philip laughs at the 

[ 28 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


idea. ... Father and Philip are operators and father 
has a distinct curvature after years of bending over a 
sewing machine, guiding seams in poor light, but Philip 
holds himself erect, declaring that he will not bend his 
back to man, let alone a machine. ... He growls and 
curses at the meanness of our living :—two little dark 
rooms in a rear house, smelly kerosene lamps, water 
from the yard pump and toilets in the backyard ... 
no better than roaches . . . worrying over the slender 
wherewithal, sleeping on a verminous couch... not 
even enough crockery or eating things. Two’soup plates 
must do for the four of us. Mother has it that respec- 
tability requires that the family must eat together. So 
mother and father eat out of one plate and Philip and 
I share the other. Mother is always slower than father, 
a little trick on her part so that father may get a little 
more of the stew. But Philip and I have regulated 
our spoon operations to ensure equal division... . 
‘‘Meyer,’’ he says, ‘‘you have the appetite of a bear 
but I have the eye of ahawk. Don’t cheat.’’ 


[ 29 ] 


II 


It is a good thing I don’t have to rely upon the home 
supply to satisfy my hunger or it would not be satis- 
fied. During these days of unemployment our dining 
is almost an empty form. But the gang knows how to 
supplement the scanty home provender. Wares on 
pushearts, stands, and in shops yield to nimble fingers, 
and magically disappear in capacious pockets. .. . 
Chunks of black bread, potatoes, smoked fish, fruit in 
season, and a variety of other eatables diversify the 
day’s forage. ...Iamthecoverguy. In other words, 
I distract the owner and screen the thief. My ways 
are modest, my talk quiet, respectful, aye, pious, and 
thus I beguile the storekeeper whilst my accomplice 
lifts and loads. ... Even in the beginning, when I 
started to play the game of life, I found it was better 
and safer to use my wits and let the other fellow do the 
manual or risky share of the job—the dirty work. 

We boys lived several kinds of lives, traveling from 
planet to planet. First there was the queer relation- 
ship of American street gamins to our old-world par- 
ents. Indeed, an ocean separated us. And distance 
does not encourage confidings and communings, but 
creates misunderstanding and leads to contempt and 
intolerance. Many of us were transient, impatient 
aliens in our parents’ homes. Then there was that 
strict, rarefied public school world. The manners and 
clothes, speech and point of view of our teachers ex- 
torted our respect and reflected upon the shabbiness, 
foreignness and crudities of our folks and homes. 

[ 30 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Again, there was the harsh and cruel cheder life with 
its atmosphere of superstition, dread and punishment. 
And then came our street existence, our sweet, lawless, 
personal, high-colored life, our vent to the disciplines, 
crampings and confinements of our other worlds. 

In our cheder on Thursday mornings we boys got a 
foretaste of the Day of Judgment. On hot summer 
days Hymie Rubin and Sam Rakowsky, who did not 
take readily to the intricacies of ancient tongues, came 
to cheder dressed in overcoats, and storm hats with 
earlaps. Archie Wotin, known in later gang history 
as Archie the Cannon, arrived with the seat of his 
knickerbockers lined with tin sheeting and his stockings 
stuffed with excelsior. Their outer works were pre- 
pared for hostilities. 

Woe oa the lad who made more than three mistakes 
in translating the weekly portion of the Law! A sewing 
machine strap, lively and venomous as an infuriated 
snake, fell mercilessly over the offending boy, awrithe 
in the righteous grasp of Melamud (teacher) Mor- 


decai.... HEarlaps, overcoats, tin sheeting and excel- 
sior were hardly enough. The well-oiled thong’s sting 
was true and terrible. ... It was not that Melamud 


Mordecai was brutal but that parents and pupils were 
pitiless. A melamud who spared the strap was soon 
mad and ruined. Parents, paying him the princely 
retainer of one dollar a month per child, required him 
to be their rigorous disciplinary officer. And, as al- 
ways, cruelty begets cruelty. The boys lost no chance 
to plague, pester and persecute the melamud. The un- 
fortunate pedagogue, old and resourceless, could rely 
only upon his strap, while his ingenious charges, in 
retaliation, devised many forms of torture. 
[31] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


I think the Creator fashioned Mordecai to amuse his 
pupils. His stature and design were the funniest in 
the world. I never saw such bowlegs as he had: he 
seemed to walk on his ankles with much swaying and 
rolling, and because of this deformity he was no taller 
than a child. His long white beard was all out of pro- 
portion to his height. He looked like a comical dwarf 
or gnome shown in our school story books. And his 
face was an old parchment with thousands of marks, 
the wrinkle-records of his trials, and his eyes were like 
inky smudges on the parchment. ... To us there was 
nothing funnier than the picture of old Mordecai, the 
hobbling, swaying dwarf, pursuing an agile boy who 
leaps under and over benches. The strap smites the 
bench or boy and our laughter roars out as raucous 
applause. ... And this woebegone, misshapen crea- 
ture has a wife—die Rebbitzan (the title given to a 
melamud’s, or Rabbi’s, wife), a frail, timorous figure in 
colorless calico. No matter how much we torment her 
husband, she never fails to call us kinderlach teire 
(little children, dears) and give us her blessings, com- 
ing and going. . . . A pious woman, her head is never 
uncovered. A black sheitel (wig) or a black lace head- 
dress, makes of her bloodless, shrunken face a bleached 
death mask. She stands, a picture of sorrow and 
humility, her head nodding and body rocking as though 
in prayer before the last Temple Wall in Jerusa- 
lem. . . . The melamud never looks at his wife, not so 
much as a sidelong glance does he bestow, nor does he 
ever speak to her, directly. He speaks to her in gener- 
alities addressed to no one in particular. A devout 
pair, devoted, perhaps, who knows? but obeying fan- 

[ 32 ] 


See ee ee eee eee 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


tastically the rabbinical dictum that a pure, pious man 
shall not look upon any woman—not even his wife. 

The Grodno Synagogue, named after the Russ- 
Lithuanian city from which its members emigrated, 
was over Witkinsky’s livery stable on Hester Street. 
It was not a pretentious place: pine benches with 
blotchy coats of paint, a central service platform balus- 
traded, and a torah cabinet (the ornate sanctum of the 
hand-inscribed scrolls of the Law) between the win- 
dows of the East Wall—the point nearest Palestine. 
The walls were decorated with crude legends of the 
zodiac. In the rear, facing the backyard, was a small 
section partitioned off for the women’s devotions, and 
in this cubby hole of a place Melamud Mordecai held 
his school. ... Seated at the head of a long pine 
table, Mordecai assigns us to our places, the wicked 
signaled out for honorary positions nearest himself, 
within convenient reach of his weapon of offense, the 
long oil-slimy sewing machine strap. 

On this hot summer day we were nearly suffocated 
by the incense of smoldering candle wicks and ripe 
manure. The place abounded in cheap yahrzeit (death 
anniversary) candles and lamps and the backyard was 
heaped with manure. The pupils, of all ages and 
degrees, are gathered around the table. The tots, no 
more than four or five years old, drone and buzz, inter- 
~minably, aleph, beth, gimel (a, b, c) backwards and 
forwards, break ranks and reassemble the scattered 
alphabet under the melamud’s little pointer. Mean- 
while, the advanced scholars attest devotion to their 
studies by rehearsing their tasks in the loudest possible 
sing-song. ... Soon the minor pupils are dismissed. 
In the classroom they are like titmice, barely audible 


[33 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


and awe-stricken, but no sooner do they get out on the 
staircase than they begin to squeal and scamper. The 
melamud rushes out and they retreat, before his bran- 
dished strap to take up a hooting and howling on the 
dung-piles in the backyard. ... And then we are 
taken over the hurdles and hazards set up by Rashi, 
that Middle Age scholar and wine merchant, whose 
interpretations of the Bible are written in Hebrew 
entwined with Old French. 


[34] 


III 

At last we are free. It is the riot of a jail delivery. 
And now for the real business of life. We follow a pre- 
arranged roundabout way back to Ludlow Street. We 
dare not pass Essex Street. Civil war has begun— 
over differences never quite specified or identified—be- 
tween the two principal Jewish gangs, the Ludlow 
Streeters and the Essex Guerrillas. The first battle is 
expected tonight. We hurry—hot for the adventure. 
Nearing home, we see a glow in the sky—promise of a 
big fire. Hastening, hilarious lads join us. The clan 
is gathering. A great bonfire burns in the cobbled 
square at Ludlow and Canal Streets. And boys are 
careening in all directions, their forms seeming to leap 
skyward with the flames. Barrels, boxes, plundered 
wooden signs, canvas signs, cellar doors, chicken coops, 
a broken pushcart, lumber, abandoned mattresses and 
couches, paint cans, beer kegs and the countless clutter 
of city streets form a huge blazing pyramid—a fiery 
challenge and defiance. ... Scouts, breathing hard, 
excited, scutter through a network of arms, legs and 
loot to report to Boolkie. I take my place next to 
Boolkie, as self-appointed adviser, strategist—any- 
thing—except fighter. In time I have made this posi- 
tion for myself, always playing the part that involves 
no personal danger and by sheer push, assertion and 
brass have become ex-officio everything. I no longer 
fight for petty leadership. I am a sort of prime minis- 
ter of our gang state, and Boolkie kneads pliantly 
under my flattery. ... The fire snaps, cackles, hisses 

[ 35 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


and flares a polyphonic accompaniment to the warriors’ 
cries, alarms and rampaging. ... An uproar that 
thrills. ... The enemy is sighted. A block away at 
Canal and Hssex Streets a battalion of boys suddenly 
flings into view and as quickly vanishes before a fusil- 
lade of brickbats. . . . Our scouts apprehend Guerrilla 
outposts at Ludlow and Hester Streets. Volleys are 
exchanged. But Boolkie and I are unmoved even when 
enemy forces are reported forming at a third point, 
Canal and Orchard Streets. . . . Whence will the real 
attack come to capture this little square which we have 
denied to them for their baseball and ‘‘pussy-cat’’ 
games? ...Shimshin (Samson the strong), leader of 
the Guerrillas, brags he will seize the square to- 
night. .. . Now there are flurries of fighting at the 
three points of contact. The Guerrillas are prodigal 
with their bottles, and they seem to be exploding every- 
where. ...It is time to start our maneuvres.... I 
loose the pets of our forces, the gaming hawks, who 
spread. like opening wings towards Essex Street via 
Canal Street, wheel and turn at the corner, hooting like 
maddened night birds on the blood scent. .. . They 
are pushing into Essex Street proper. ... Our plan 
is to distract the Guerrillas from Hester and Ludlow 
Streets, where lies hidden in hallways and cellars the 
main body of our effectives. ... Our hawks hover, 
and swoop and begin to meet with greater resistance. 
We have irritated a sore spot in bringing the fight right 
into the enemy’s home territory. . . . He calls in his 
men to repulse the stiff assault.... Now Hester 
Street is deserted. ... The enemy cheers. Our pets 
are being squeezed out of Essex Street. But by this 
time Boolkie has unleashed his hidden cohorts and in 
[ 36 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


person leads an unopposed charge upon the Guerrillas’ 
rear, and routs them to their cellars and roofs. 

Our victorious gang parades the length of Essex 
Street shouting insults and jeers. Seeing that victory 
is complete and the fighting and danger over, I pop up 
at Boolkie’s side ready to demand and share the fruits 
of the other fellows’ fighting. The boys begin to tear 
down the wooden signs fronting the stores. The shop- 
keepers plead with the vandals. It was then that I first 
seized upon a plan that suggested to me the policy that 
I followed throughout my career,—to make every situ- 
ation return a profit. So I approach Jake Weingrad, 
who has a woolen remnants store. He is wringing his 
hands in impotent rage as the boys are pulling down 
the long wooden sign under his show-window. 

‘Where are the police?’’ he cries in vain. Where 
are they, indeed. They have learnt well the wisdom 
of not being around when two gangs are embattled. 

I take Mr. Weingrad aside, and throw out a hint that 
a little payment will protect his sign. He cries out in 
anguish, ‘‘Protection money!’’ and therewith coined a 
name that became in the Hast Side a synonym for 
extortion. 

‘Only twenty-five cents,’’ I whisper, ‘‘and a new 
sion costs much more. ...’’ Heis actually agape at 
my audaciousness, but a ripping noise of wood and 
nails coming apart arouses him to a practical con- 
clusion. 

I tell Boolkie, and he applauds the idea. The sign 
destroyers now work under my orders, and I go among 
the storekeepers and soon return to Boolkie with the 
astounding sum of four dollars. 

‘‘Protection money,’’ I cry, unconsciously echoing 

[37] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Weingrad. ‘‘Protection money’’ is reiterated many 
times by the jubilant gangsters. 

And in this way began the blackmail of small store- 
keepers that Boolkie and I later developed into a fine 
business, and in time this petty but wholesale extortion 
became one of the main income sources of gangsters. 


[ 38 ] 


IV 


It was an early summer night, pleasantly warm, this 
night of civil war. 

Then came the quiet that we call quiet in the city,— 
only an occasional rattle of an empty wagon and 
the clatter of hoofs, a moment’s hush like a fevered 
sleeper’s sigh, the rattle and jangle of car horses’ bells 
to the slipping and grating of their iron shoes on the 
cobblestones of their bumpy treadmill; a cry, a greet- 
ing, now there is laughter, the saloon’s ribald guffaw, 
doors shutting like the sounds of a slazey drum; cats 
sputtering and spitting over the garbage heaps in the 
gutter ... the city’s bedtime quiet. ... But stilled 
are the cymbals of strife, the crashing and splintering 
of bottles thrown by the warring boys, and their 
strident battle cries... . 

Now Boolkie and a little group of congenials are at 
the corner playing a deft and delicate game—picking 
one another’s pockets. Peace hath its pastimes... 
And I sit on the stoop of our house in a glow of pleasure 
over the four quarters that I have held out of the 
reckoning of collected tribute and which are hidden in 
my shoes. Ho, I put it over on them, all right. They 
battled, they were in danger, they did the footwork and 
handwork, but it was I who did a quick bit of head- 
work. The headwork! That’s the stuff! ... And 
how I fooled them with a little fumbling with my shoe 
laces while I shoved the coins into my shoes. And I 
was a hero, everybody said I was a smart guy and liked 
me because I got them a big boodle for a blowout 

[39] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


of wurst and candy. I too feasted on spicy wurst and 
hard candies—at their expense, but I had also money, 
more money than I had ever had. 

Snatches of conversation drift through my reverie. 
Davie Solomon and Avrum Toledo are seated on the 
lowest step. I suppose they greeted me, but I was too 
engrossed in egotistical self-caressing to notice them. 

My cronies at the corner break out in a jeering 
chorus to a jerky stamping of feet, ‘‘Hippity-hop, 
hippity-hop, look out, look out, here comes the cop.’’ 
And along came Reb Mendel Gerditsky, unconcerned, 
dignified, lamely strutting, conscious of his office of 
general factotum of the Grodno Synagogue, arch 
enemy of all boys, whom he keeps in order during 
prayers by applying his famous corkscrew pinch on 
cheek, arm, thigh or any other part of squirming dis- 
turbers. And his victims dubbed him der hingkerdiker 
shammos (the limping beadle), always ridiculing him 
in the street by calling public attention to his limp, 
caused by one foot being shorter than the other. He 
wears his famous frock coat, its skirts flapping about 
his knees like windless sails. Neither the summer’s 
sweat, nor the winter’s snow could divest him of his 
official garb, which he carries with the pomp and 
flourish of a senator’s toga. Legend has it that The 
Coat was of holy and reverent ancestry, an heirloom 
from his grandfather, the chief Rabbi of Grodno. But 
tonight there is a touch to his attire that betokens an 
important event, a wedding or a funeral. Perched on 
his head is a stove-pipe hat. Wallowing in his wake, 
bobbing like a small boat in the trough of a large ship, 
comes Melamud Mordecai, nobly trying to keep up with 
the beadle. 

[ 40 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


The shammos stops to peer at us in the dark of the 
stoop. Avrum and Davie rise. The melamud pants 
for breath. 7 

‘Come, children,’’ speaks the authoritative beadle, 
‘‘come with us and earn the greatest mitzvah (bless- 
ing). Come and recite the psalms for the dying.’’ 

‘‘Go, children, a great mitzvah, verily,’’ says the 
melamud. 

_ Avrum holds back, but yields to Davie’s earnest plea 
to do a mitzvah. 

The shammos leads the way to the top floor of an old 
three-story house on Hester Street and, as we climb 
the stairs, hear a weird jumble of lamenting voices. 
Boolkie and the others, very curious, have trailed along 
and now linger like restless imps in the hall as we enter 
the Schneider flat. Neighbors, synagogue brethren, 
and nine of the ten Schneider children pack the 
four little rooms. Only Ikey Schneider, the baby, is 
absent, called baby, although fifteen years old, because 
he is the youngest of the children. 

‘‘Hind me my baby,’’ wails Mrs. Schneider, wringing 
her hands. ‘‘Bring back the sinner to ask forgiveness 
of his dying father and receive his death-bed benedic- 
HONE ot 77 

She moves like a distracted creature among the 
people, whining ‘‘/kelle, mein Ikelle, my poor baby is 
to be an orphan, nebach (pity)—an orphan.”’ 

Ikey is ‘‘on the bum,’’ which is our idiomatic way 
of saying that a boy is not living at home. Ikey was 
proud when he reported to us—‘‘ My father chased me 
outa the house.’’ His father said, ‘‘Until you were 
bar mitevah (confirmed) I was responsible to God for 
your sins and to man for your acts. Now you must 

is 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


bear your own burdens. You steal from me, you refuse 
to study and you refuse to learn the buttonhole trade. 
You act like an outcast, therefore be an outcast.’’ So 
Ikey went out, rejoicing to sleep in hallways and beg 
or steal his daily meals. 

I slip down to the hall and find Ikey larking with his 
fellow gangsters. 

‘*Come on up,’’ I say, ‘‘your father is croaking.”’ 

‘What the hell I care, le’ him croak,’’ he answers, 
his swollen, pimply face awry with a stupid leer. He 
shifts his overgrown body nervously, the body that is 
man’s size but governed by a feeble baby’s mind. Ikey, 
who could learn nothing in school and cheder, learned 
one thing exceedingly well—how to steal bundles from 
wagons and bring them to Jake Weingrad’s store and 
get a few pennies. 

‘‘G’wan up,’’ commands Boolkie. 

‘‘Come’n up wi’ me,’’ whines Ikey. 

‘*‘G’wan up, you dope,’’ answers Boolkie, adding a 
few sharp prods in the ribs. Ikey, protesting, ‘‘Who 
you hittin’?’’ goes up the stairs, followed by Boolkie 
and his particulars. 

Mrs. Schneider falls on the neck of her boy, but the 
shammos pulls him away to take him to his father’s 
bedside. 

The dying man is a terrible picture of emaciation. 
The Gabbe (president or headman) of the synagogue 
sits at the place of honor, near the head of the bed, 
shaking his head benignly. The shammos has distrib- 
uted the tillim (psalm books) and we read them in a 
muted tone that becomes a thrumming and a murmur- 
ing as the bass and childish voices mingle. Ikey is 
thrust forward and stands dumbly looking down upon 

[ 42 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


his father’s heaving chest. The father’s eyes flicker 
open and after one glance at Ikey’s face seems dis- 
mayed, as though, the Gabbe later said, he beheld the 
flaming vision of the angel of death. 

Just then I looked around and saw my father come 
into the room—a frightened look upon his face. 
Schneider was dying of the shop sickness—consump- 
tion—and father had a dread of the shop sickness, the 
plague of Dollar Land. ... 

The candles are lighted. The man is dead. A wife 
grieves, and nine children mourn, but a tenth child 
- gays, ‘‘Momie, gimmie somethin’ t’ eat.’’? Chairs are 
overturned and we sit on the rungs, while the bereaved 
family in stockinged feet sit on low boxes. A neighbor 
shrouds the mirrors, and through the night we keep 
vigil beside the corpse, droning the psalms. ... The 
candles sputter. . . . An old man has fallen asleep and 
snores with an occasional rasping gasp. Boolkie sits 
near the door like a person waiting for something to 
happen, short, heavy set, named after the bulky break- 
fast rolls sold by the Ghetto bakers. Here is his 
mother, a professional mourner, puttering about the 
kitchen, every now and then releasing a prodigious 
sigh, more like the hiss of escaping steam. She is the 
beggarwoman who sits timelessly like a crouching 
bronze image in front of the Grodno Synagogue—only 
to arise and appear at funerals—rattling her beggar’s 
tin box, mumbling benedictions on donors. Dago 
Jack’s eager, curious face, swarthy and pinched, be- 
comes like shining wax in the candle light, flits in the 
doorway. He is a goy (Gentile) and may not pass 
the threshold. A Sicilian lad, stunted, knock-kneed, 
a bravado, the glad doer of dangerous jobs, one of a 

43 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


brood of twelve. His father tends a tiny peanut 
and chestnut stand, and his brothers are newsboys and 
bootblacks and his little sisters slaveys for the local 
business men’s wives. Sneak, thief, truant, a stiletto 
artist, he acknowledges one God—To-Be-As-Tough- 
As-Hell, and Boolkie is his prophet. 

Avrum stares at the ceiling as though fascinated by 
the cobwebby shadows cast by the flickering candles. 
For the most part he has not made even a pretense at 
reading. The tillim lies open upon his knees. But 
Davie, leaning against his arm, has prayed, fearfully, 
passionately. Avrum is a cold unbeliever, while Davie 
believes, abjectly, in the cheder God of Vengeance. 
Yet they are inseparable pals, called the one-and-a-half 
twins because Davie, though be is Avrum’s age, is 
slight and small, while Avrum is long-limbed, sturdy 
and well developed. They belong to the bookish clique, 
detached dwellers in an ivory tower, have nothing to 
do with the gang and are despised for sissies. Avrum 
with his black hair, dark, smouldering eyes and olive 
complexion suggests a Spanish young man, and Davie 
with his white skin, blue eyes and golden hair suggests 
a Polish boy of nine, his actual age being fifteen. . 
Avrum is a new kind of Jewish boy in the Ghetto. He 
came with his folks from the Balkans. At first the 
neighbors thought they were not Jews because they did 
not speak Yiddish. Their everyday speech was Ladino, 
melodious Old Castilian garnished with Hebrew and 
bits of the universal patois of Mediterranean ports. 
It was the language of a great population of Jews in 
Spain, who, when they were expelled by the Inquisition, 
carried their dialect to the Balkans and Mediterranean 
ports, and it survives to this day. ...Avrum Toledo 

[44] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


is quite mature—a silky down, like little shadows, 
shows on his upper lip and cheeks. Years later when I 
looked upon Rembrandt’s portrait of a Jew I thought 
I beheld my Ladino pal with clear wide brow, big brown 
eyes, reposeful, intelligent oval face, long shapely nose 
with its wide thin nostrils and ripe full-blown lips, a 
lover’s mouth. ... Avrum confides in Uncle Philip. 
They have but one thing in common, a hearty ridicule 
for God and all religion. Yet he is the son of a man 
whom Philip describes as a ‘‘double harness Jew,’’ a 
man who is so pious that he prays wearing two sets of 
phylacteries. Avrum calls the fine long leathern straps 
that his father winds on his arm and head the shackles 
of superstition. But he is devoted to the ugly, stunted 
old man of swarthy face and queer woolly beard. 
Avrum sits many hours after school helping his mother 
and sisters make kimonos, which Avrum’s father ped- 
dles from door to door. . . . And Davie Solomon, wan 
and winsome, clings to the stalwart dreamer like a 
delicate flower upon the trunk of adark tree. He is the 
well-beloved of old Mordecai, for in Davie the melamud 
finds response rich and reverent. Davie’s father, too, 
had died of the dread shop sickness and he is the only 
child of the little ‘‘horseradish widow,’’ a shrunken 
young woman with gray, withered hair straggling from 
under her faded shawl. She has a small stand on 
Hester Street near Ludlow Street, where she plays a 
bitter tune on a horseradish mill and sells the ground 
root in little paper packets. Davie may be often seen 
sitting beside her, his beautiful head upon her breast, 
and as she turns the tiny handle of the doleful organ, 
Davie sings softly the mournful songs of an exiled folk 
locked within the Polish pale. ... Archie Wotin is 
[45 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


getting restless. He has been pulling Ikey’s coat from 
behind and Ikey is confused, looking about him, not 
knowing whom to blame. Archie is feeling better now 
that he is fooling someone, even if it is only a half-wit. 
His fingers are long, thin and nimble. Generations of 
needle-plying ancestors have endowed him with digits 
that are not an encumbrance to this descendant who 
has turned from stitching to snitching. Archie was a 
marvelous pickpocket. He was a versatile har, a liar 
for lying’s sake, told a lie even when the truth would 
do as well. He had roving little eyes set in a yellow, 
pinched face, and he looked like a sickly child when as 
a matter of fact his body was wiry, strong and active. 
He seemed afraid of only one thing—of being afraid. 
Fearlessness was his ideal. His father worked in a 
sweatshop and saw his son only when he was out of 
work. As Philip says, a worker and his children are 
strangers. He goes to work while the children are 
asleep, and in the evening he is too tired to do anything 
but go to sleep so as to be ready again for work at the 
break of day. So Boolkie had the bringing up of 
Archie, whose mother has the ceaseless care of four 
babies. ... Boolkie thinks Ikey’s bewilderment is 
great fun. Boolkie accuses Davie, who raises startled 
eyes from the éillim to find Ikey glaring at him. ‘‘Cut 
it out, you sissie,’’ says Boolkie to Davie. But at this 
moment Ikey is again annoyed from another direction 
and he begins to splutter. . . . Harry Wotin, Archie’s 
brother, until now sitting moodily against a wall, rises 
and begs Archie to stop. ‘‘It is wrong and a sin to 
harm an orphan.’’ Archie is only fourteen and his 
brother is two years older. Archie snarls back at him: 
‘“You don’t expect me to swallow that bunk.’’ But 
[ 46 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


[key settles the matter by demanding of Harry, an- 
other one of the despised cult of book boys, ‘‘ What the 
hell you buttin’ infor. .. .’? Avrum laughs. Harry’s 
pimply face and scrawny neck flushes crimson as Bool- 
kie remarks to Archie, ‘‘I betcha you could knock day- 
light outa him even if he is your big brother. ...”’ 
Archie assures him that he could do it with both hands 
tied. ... The shammos thunders, ‘‘What is this—a 
corner for tramps; have you no fear of holy occa- 
sions? ...’’? Davie shudders and reads fervently, 
and even Boolkie mumbles a page or two. .. . At last 
the shammos tells us to go. His men have come to lay 
out the body for interment in the morning. The 
Schneiders, making a melancholy group, stand in the 
kitchen and are awakened to fresh outbursts of grief 
by these preparations. The reading of the tllim 
seemed to have hushed and soothed them. The two old 
men, the shammos’s funeral assistants, went about their 
business with a great matter of fact manner, demand- 
ing of the shammos, ‘‘How is anything to be done? 
We can barely move about in such a crowd,’’ meaning 
the mourners in the kitchen, who have been unable to 
make their beds because of the presence of so many 
people in every room. 


[47] 


V 


All the boys in the gang were not thieves. Many 
remained petty thieves until stronger influences came 
along to lift them out of the ruck. It was the excep- 
tional, almost abnormal boy who did not join the gang. 
The gang was romance, adventure, had the zest of 
banditry, the thrill of camp life, and the lure of hero- 
worship. An incident happened in the early part of 
this torrid summer that brought all the boy elements 
into the gangs and for the first time united the half 
dozen Jewish gangs in New York.... Feeling ran 
high when a Jewish peddler was killed by cobblestones 
thrown by an Irish gang on Grand Street near Gouver- 
neur Street. A few of our boys were held up and badly 
beaten by the Jackson Street gang after our lads came 
out of the East River, where they had been swimming 
and poling logs. The Guerrillas had even fared worse, 
their leader’s head was broken. Shimshin was per- 
sonally brave, although not clever. He went into 
Gouverneur Street hospital long enough to have his 
head tied up and came out to defy the ‘‘Micks.’’ He 
barely escaped with his life. 

Jackson Street on the Hast River was the only spot 
that had a sort of a sand beach that made the bathing 
highly pleasurable. In fact, the whole river front was 
in Mick territory, and during the days when the Jew 
was a newcomer in this wild section of Manhattan the 
Irish hoodlums regarded him as legitimate prey. The 
summer was frightfully hot, and outside of the schwitz 
mickvahs (Russian sweat baths), the river was our 

[48 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


only place for a bath. The gangs took up the Mick 
challenge gladly. It engendered that feverish, fanati- 
cal spirit that comes with religious war. The Irish lads 
shouted, ‘‘Kill the Christ killers,’? and the Jewish 
boys cried, ‘‘Mopolize the Micks.’’ (A strange word, 
probably coming from the root of mopel, to abort. In 
any event it implied the direst punishment.) But the 
Micks were splendid fighters and the Jewish attacks 
were sporadic. It seems strange that there should ever 
have been this intense hostility between the Jews and 
the Irish, as later when they became acquainted they 
were amiable neighbors and the most powerful local 
gangs were made up of an admixture of Irish, Jews 
and Italians. However, the gangs in the main had one 
national predominance. 

The Ludlow Streeters made a foray, but retreated 
ignominiously. Boolkie was furious with the humilia- 
tion. He had gibed Shimshin that we would give the 
Micks a good beating. The Micks were too numerous 
to be handled by a single gang. I suggested an alliance 
with the Guerrillas, and that very morning the two 
gangs, hot for revenge and without plan or prepara- 
tion, invaded Gouverneur Street. We momentarily 
swept the Irish before us. Gouverneur Street is nar- 
row. Our boys congested the street from sidewalk to 
sidewalk. We whistled and halooed gleefully, but in 
another moment fled from a downpour of bricks and 
mortar. The Gouverneur lads had simply retired to 
their roofs, dismantled a few chimneys, and rained the 
brickbats down upon us. Just then a gang of Micks 
coming from Henry Street attacked our panic-stricken 
ranks. Well, it was a pitiful debacle. You may imagine 
our chagrin, we who had rated ourselves unbeatable. 

[49] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


I felt deeply ashamed. My idea had not worked. It 
was up to me to save my face and the standing of our 
gang. Then there was that deep racial feeling. Our 
defeat was the talk of the Ghetto. For the first time 
our elders approved a gang fight. Here again was that 
vicious racial passion. The bookish boys rallied to our 
cause. The Stanton Street gang, a small contingent, 
called for a conference. They, too, had tasted the bitter 
dregs of defeat. I went to my home, saying to myself 
a few phrases that became my formula for every tight 
corner in which I would find myself. Use your head. 
Use your head. There’s a way out—if you use your 
head. I was sitting in the kitchen. Mother was wash- 
ing clothes. The wash boiler was on the stove simmer- 
ing. Mother asked me to get the cover for the boiler 
from under the bed. I fetched out the cover by slip- 
ping my hand through the handle, and in this manner 
carried it to mother. Mother laughed at the way I held 
up the cover, saying that in the olden times the Jewish 
soldiers, the Maccabeans, fought with shields that 
looked like the cover of the washboiler. And then I 
used my head. I slipped out of the house with the 
cover and appeared before the gang flourishing it like 
a shield. ‘‘Come on,’’ I shouted, ‘‘now we’ll beat the 
Micks.’’ Boolkie and Shimshin and other notables 
listened excitedly to my idea. Every boy was ordered 
to go and get his mother’s washboiler cover. In a little 
time a grand army assembled on Canal Square with 
gleaming tin and copper shields. Other boys had 
climbed to the roofs of houses and torn off tin decora- 
tions which became armor helmets. A council was 
held. Stanton Street was summoned. A real cam- 
paign was outlined. 

[90] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Again we marched into Gouverneur Street. Again 
the Micks flew to roofs and started to pelt us with 
bricks, mortar and stones. But our clans were march- 
ing under a tin roof. We drove them from the roofs, 
administering cruel beatings to the captured. In this 
gang fight a revolver was used for the first time. Shim- 
shin in a rage had bought a revolver and was deter- 
mined to kill a few Micks. Fortunately, his bullets 
found no mark. 

We marched down to the beach, planted guards and 
outposts and our hosts frolicked in the slimy waters 
of the East River. 

How I enjoyed the triumph. My headwork had dis- 
tinguished me. I was referred to as some wise guy. 
Everybody applauded my ingenuity. Neighbors con- 
gratulated my folks. It was war against the Gen- 
tiles. Everyone rejoiced that the oppressor was well 
trounced. Philip remarked casually, ‘‘Good ideas are 
good only if they show a profit. Bear in mind—have 
only profitable ideas.’’ It was that evening that Uncle 
Philip, after long, silent ruminating, announced, 
‘Meyer is going to be a lawyer.”’ 


[51] 


VI 


Looking back I try hard to remember when it was 
that we city street-bred boys had an age of innocence. 
It seems that we were born with a bit of apple from the 
tree of knowledge in our mouths. Things as they are 
were but rarely treated as anything else but as things 
as they are. Hymie Rubin’s grandmother, who kept 
house for her widowed son and his children, would say 
to Hymie, ‘‘You were already a thief m your mother’s 
belly.’”? I mention this merely to say that we heard 
such things so often that they had no special effect 
upon our minds, but were just things that are. Hymie 
Rubin had a particular grudge against his grand- 
mother. She had made him comically knock-kneed for 
life, and what greater injury can anyone have done to 
him than to be made comically deformed. When Hymie 
was born his grandmother, as was the fashion then, 
immediately swaddled his body with tight binders, but 
had erred in overtightening the binding about his 
knees. Hymie had no mother to look after him, his 
father was busy in the shop, and his grandmother, 
half-blind, spent the day grumbling and mumbling, 
having but one concern in life—to have a hot supper 
ready for her son, the breadgiver. Notwithstanding 
that she had crippled her grandchild for life, Hymie’s 
grandmother officiated and advised at many births. 
Consequently Hymie, at twelve, was something of an 
authority on births. Yet he was one of the cleanest- 
minded boys I ever knew. And in the end it made 

[52] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Hymie decide to be a doctor. ... And so it was... 
we just knew things. . . . Sometimes births took place 
under our eyes. Many a lad has lent a hand to a 
bustling midwife called at the last moment. ... And 
then crowded quarters left nothing untold. . . . A mul- 
titude of men brought a plenteous supply. Seduction 
was commonplace, and many a man considered a trip 
across the ocean tantamount to a divorce. So there 
was much talk, and all a growing boy needs is a word 
here and there to piece together a pretty tale for his 
fellow adolescents. 

Of sex mysteries there was none for me. The whole 
scheme of life was presented to me as preordained, and 
so what I saw and heard fitted in quite naturally. My 
advanced cheder studies embraced the rules and regu- 
zations of all human relations. It was not the sort of 
thing to disorder or inflame the mind. But then came 
the time of titters, and whispers and nudges. <A per- 
sonal, forbidden phase was presented. Scandalized 
murmurs, lewd references, bizarre narratives of indi- 
vidual experiences made us sharply curious of the 
newest Ghetto sensation, the Allen Street mysteries. 

Allen Street, that shadowy lane living in the murk 
of smoke and rust and rumble of the elevated steam 
railroad, a stodgy home street, became in a day a 
thronged, roisterous thoroughfare. 

A bare-faced and brazen-tongued crew of wastrels 
rented the lower floor of many houses on Allen Street 
and displayed colorful human wares in the windows. 
Even for the wide-open town that New York was at 
the time, the brazen and bare-faced desecration of a 
home street was shocking. Nothing concealed, no 
secrecy, no mystery. The hidden rites of the mystery 

[93 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


of mysteries became the crudest comedy. Panders in 
the street bickered over a prospective customer. Boys 
were welcomed and cajoled with cut-rates. The gaudy 
window creatures winked and whistled a strange little 
sound imported from the streets of Warsaw and Buda- 
pest, their trade clarion, which whistle and hiss in one 
most of the boys soon learned and practiced. These 
little tricks became one of the boys’ games. Troops 
of lads from every part of the East Side would slink 
past to gape and wonder and end by jeering and laugh- 
ing. A busy, noisy mart... highly profitable to 
cadets, landlords, politicians and policemen. 

Issy Weingrad, who invited bundle thieves to bring 
their plunder to his father’s store, introduced Ikey 
Schneider into the Allen Street comedy. And so Ikey 
had another reason for stealing. . . . Mike Rothstein, 
the good-natured, easy-going fellow whose brothers 
and sisters were models of good behavior and industry, 
seemed to have no sense of wrong. He just did things. 
When Issy told him where he might pick up some de- 
sirable stuff, Mike just went and stole it. And when 
Ikey asked Mike to keep him company in Allen Street, 
Mike drifted along, and in a short time drifted into a 
hospital for a long tussle with disease. ... But Mike’s 
disaster was no deterrent: soon it was a general thing 
for the gang to visit Allen Street . . . and that, too, 
became one of the things that are. And the things that 
are are the things that are meant to be. 


[54 ] 


VII 


Uncle Philip was not impressed with the news that 
the Grodno Synagogue had imported a rov (Rabbi) 
from its name city. A rov, he said, is a scholar a 
thousand years behind the times. Is the world startled 
by a new invention, a scientific discovery? Then the 
rov says disparagingly that it was known and tried 
before, generally showing by anagrams, cryptograms, 
hidden meanings, double meanings, that it was known 
to this prophet or that wise scholar or was one of the 
many things found as vain and futile by Solomon, 
the original Great-Know-It-All. The rov lives in a 
choked Talmudical jungle and dares not tear away as 
much as a little leaf to let in light. He is the supreme 
court of his congregation, presides as jurist in legal 
squabbles, arbitrates business disputes, adjusts neigh- 
borhood wrangles, regulates all ritual dictums, sets 
the spiritual standard and censors manners, morals 
and the arts. 

The rov, Chiam Zucker, certainly raised the Grodno 
Synagogue’s standing. He attracted many pious 
members, and rich business men paid high seat rentals 
for the honor of sitting near him. Rov Zucker set out to 
raise funds for the erection of a seminary. His slogan 
was, ‘‘ Beware! this new land, with its freedoms, is but 
a snare and temptation to wean away your youth from 
Judaism.’’ The shammos attended him everywhere as 
a fawning flunkey and entered the pledges in a bulky 
ledger. 

Rov Zucker was easily aman of seventy. Tall, angu- 

[55 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


lar and erect, he carried himself with gracious dignity. 
He was like a patriarch of ancient times. His face 
seemed to shine transparently white, and his long flow- 
ing beard blew about his face like a fleecy cloud. His 
gray eyes were steady and farseeing. Serenely self- 
sufficient, he went about his duties and no man said him 
nay. Even Philip respected him and admired his ways. 
He said it was a pity that such a man should have been 
lost in an impassable jungle. 

One day Rov Zucker discovered Allen Street. After 
the Saturday night service the Grodno Synagogue 
members remained to hold a business meeting. The 
rov asked a strange question. He wanted to know if 
any member of the Grodno Synagogue owned property 
on Allen Street. Harris Rittberg and Baruch Engel 
answered that they did. ‘‘And,’’ asked the rov, ‘‘is 
any part of your property let out as brothels? ...”? 

It was a stormy meeting. Rittberg and Engel were 
rich and influential members. They preferred to evade 
the rov’s question—parried the thrust, saying they 
did not know what their tenants were doing, although 
it was common knowledge that certain tenants paid ten 
times as much as ordinary tenants. The rov did not 
urge the matter, but sat throughout the evening con- 
templatively, majestically silent. 

The following day was Sunday, Allen Street’s 
busiest day. About noon Rov Zucker stood at the cor- 
ner of Canal and Allen Streets, a picturesque figure 
amid the shifting crowds. He then strode up and down 
the middle of Allen Street, his hands upraised as in 
prayer, and soon a number of men and boys collected 
around him. 

He stood still and a hush fell upon the street. He 

[56] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


spoke in tones of exhortation and his words fell with 
the crushing cadence of Biblical curses. 

‘‘Hear ye, Children of Israel, heed the voice of the 
Lord and turn away from evil. 

‘*Children of Israel, ye find yourselves in a new land, 
a stranger among strangers, and the heavy hand of 
judgment is always upon the stranger. 

‘*Hiven so, ye find yourselves in a land of miracles, 
a land of life and liberty, where you may work how or 
where you will, a blessed land of free choice. You are 
not denied your God nor His house of worship. Here 
you are not confined, hampered nor oppressed. 

‘*Here is the joy of the righteous, for here ye are not 
driven to extreme resorts to find bodily sustenance. 

‘*In the name of the Almighty, I ask ye, search your 
soul, wherefore are ye in evil occupation? 

‘‘Turn away from evil, deck your shame and flee the 
sight and word of ill-fame. 

‘**For even as one of ye is besmirched, all of ye will 
be named foul. 

‘*Heed, or ye will bring down God’s curse upon you 
in this fourth and last corner of the ae the further- 
most nook of your exile. 

‘*Cease splattering slime and ne upon the Shield 
of David. 

**Open your ears and heed, or cursed be your day. 

“‘Cursed be your hour, your moment, your second. 

‘‘Cursed be unto eternity. 

‘‘May your eyes become as searing coals in your 
heads. 

‘‘May your tongues become as molten lead in your 
mouths and choke and stifle you, even a thousand times, 
a thousand times. 

[57 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘*May your limbs wither and rot——’’ 

Painted faces drew back and windows slammed shut. 
The street began to clear as shamefaced men sidled 
away and fled the fearsome consequences of a Rabbi’s 
curse. Only a few open-mouthed boys lingered to 
watch the rov. ... The rov’s eyes, turned heaven- 
ward, did not see a hand clutching a blackjack strike 
out. Just one blow, well placed, and Rov Zucker 
toppled to the gutter. A wounded cry went up, not 
from the Rabbi, but from the onlooking people, as blood 
gushed from the old man’s forehead. 


[98] 


VItl 


Berel the harness fixer comes up for air. I was 
sitting on the steps to his cellar. I was crowded off 
the stoop by Philip and his friends, dubbed—the dis- 
cussionists. 

‘Well, here we are again. The good old reliable hot 
summer. Every summer the people talk about the 
same thing. It’s so hot. Every winter the people 
talk about the same thing. It’s so cold. Bad weather 
is a fine thing. It’s one thing people can talk about 
without getting angry.’’ 

Berel spoke in his gentle way, smiling and benevolent. 
It was easy to see that he was poking fun at Philip and 
his friends who were having an excited argument. 

‘“<You know, Meyer, I could hear them way down in 
my cellar and, mark you, Lutz was snoring.’’ 

Berel grabbed his head between his hands, exclaim- 
ing, ‘‘They will have to stop banging on my teapot.’’ 

Now it was Philip banging away, quick volleys of 
words,—derision, abuse, sneers.... Answers came, 
—quick, quivering, biting, insulting, pleading, reason- 
ing, begging and softening, and then came a stillness 
as the one man spoke for whom the gathering had the 
respect that a quibbling group of intimates shows to 
a stranger.... The stranger is an American, and 
what is more, a Gentile, and his company was held as 
an honorary condescension. And how people knuckle 
under to a condescender, especially such fellows like 
Philip who defy the world. Philip defies the world so 
long as the world takes no notice of him. 


[59 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘*Who is the goy (Gentile)?’’ asks Berel. ‘‘To me 
he looks like an Irisher, but it can’t be. He’s so quiet, 
got such nice ways—an educated man as I live: can’t 
be an Irisher, I am sure.”’ 

Berel’s acquaintance with the Irish was limited to 
a handful of hoodlums who thought it was fine sport 
and good citizenship to attack these outlandish new- 
comers, the dirty sheenies. Still, it was enough in 
Berel’s eyes to condemn an entire people. 

‘Well, he is a real enough Irisher,’’ I tell him. 
‘‘His name is Barney Finn, a stranger in New York, 
comes from an American state called Vermont.’’ 

‘‘Utt, that explains it,’’ says Berel, ‘‘the wild ones 
are bred in this cursed city.’’ 

Barney Finn’s talk is as casual as his long-legged 
gait, amere amble that somehow covers a lot of ground. 

‘“‘Take my word, folks, what you’ve been talking 
about is certainly important and interesting: Tolstoi, 
Marx, Kropotkin, Engles, Bakunin, their doctrines, for- 
mulas, theories, programs to make the world a better 
place. But that’s where I feel moved to break in. 
I’m a down-to-the-ground fellow. My feet kind of get 
rooted to the spot I happen to be in. What about the 
acre of land I’m standing on! I’ll clear it and cultivate 
it before I tackle the millions of other acres in the 
world. You fellows can’t see any proposition or 
problem that’s a mite smaller than the whole earth. .. . 
Here’s our own little patch chockful of stink- 
weeds. ... Folks, I refer to and mean that stinking 
shame—Allen Street. And I tell you straight out of 
my heart that Allen Street will be what it is as long 
as you folks stand for it... . I talked with the politi- 
cians. Oh, they don’t make any shucks about it. They 

[ 60 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


admit it’s rotten, rancid stuff. They don’t care, the 
politicians, because the people they’re offending are 
not voters. They don’t care so long as the greater 
number of East Siders are just immigrants, non- 
voting, docile greenhorns. They don’t care how much 
they rile you—long as you haven’t got the vote. They 
aim to please the regulars, and the regulars are the 
fellows who corral and deliver the voters on election 
day. And who are the regulars? The saloon keepers, 
disorderly house operators, shyster lawyers, profes- 
sional gamblers, thieves, gangsters and cadets, and they 
are served by a pondful of smallfry—the petty favor 
seekers. They’re nasty company, and a person with any 
self-respect shuns politics: so politics stays nasty. ... 
Politicians know but one law,—if you’re regular— 
you’re right. Allen Street. The regulars want it,—so 
there it is. Rabbi Zucker’s protest and broken head 
don’t count. Hedon’t control votes. . . . Do you want 
a decent community? It ain’t the politicians’ fault. 
They’re willing enough. Soon as the bulk of votes is 
decent the politicians will become decent: after all, 
they’ve got the habit of officeholding, a comfortable 
habit that they won’t want to get out of.’’ 

I translate Barney Finn’s talk to Berel, and he gives 
Barney high praise: ‘‘He don’t bang on my teapot.’’ 


(él 


Ix 


Philip sees to it that my bar mitzvah (Confirma- 
tion; a sort of coming of religious age) is impressive. 
He and Melamud Mordecai prepare a learned address 
in Hebrew, a complicated thesis that I can’t make 
head or tail of, but it is Just involved and pedantic 
enough to satisfy the most critical. I commit it to 
memory. Philip tests me every morning before he 
leaves for work. He wakes me and before I can even 
brush the cobwebs of sleep from my eyes, plies me 
with review questions. I become letter perfect. The 
day of my confirmation falls on New Year’s, a day 
made more holy by also being Saturday, the Sabbath. 
The synagogue is crowded and to everyone’s delight I 
manage the intricate performance without a hitch or 
error. My mother is proud and happy. Philip doesn’t 
complain, and that is praise indeed. Father seems just 
a dazed onlooker, and barely mumbles in reply to the 


congratulations. 
My own feeling is elation. I am important, I am the 
center of interest. . . . [ am important. 


But back of my mind is a greater joy,—release from 
the confinement of the cheder. It is like saying 
good-bye to the bug-bear of religion, the religion 
that everlastingly thunders—fear, beware, be warned, 
be afraid of the God of Vengeance: a God eternally 
sitting in judgment. A mysterious, unseen, unsee- 
able, unknowable and fearful thing—God. No wonder 
this religion is disagreeable, and unbelievable to 
us—pagans of the city wild. Little wonder we 

[ 62 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


rebelled against our daylong studies of Biblical 
lore with emphasis on the raw curses and chastise- 
ments, the subtle Apocryphal enlargement of the por- 
trait of the God of Vengeance; the endless Rabbinical 
rules and rites and fasts and laments to appease 
that insatiable monster—God of Vengeance. No 
beauty. Nothing spiritual. You may vanquish or 
seduce a pagan with beauty; but fear—a pagan laughs 
at fear. This is how I translate today my feeling 
towards my religion, but on my confirmation day I 
simply felt,—I can’t swallow that bunk: I puke it 
right back. 


[63] 


THIRD PERIOD 


Bright and large eyed maidens like 
hidden pearls. 


Koran, 


Ys 
OPig: 


xf Wei 
: Re aae +) 
Naa a Pe 


ite 


THIRD PERIOD 
z 

Girls exist. Rather, I have just become conscious of 
their existence. Until now it has been a Boys’ World. 
Gorgeous flowers were blooming all around me, but I 
trod upon them. Good form of the Boys’ World was 
to tease, insult and annoy these gangly things called 
girls. The sissies, only, had girl friends. As to the 
women we visited in Allen Street, well, they were not 
girls, they were a special species bred for a special pur- 
pose. At first we went out of curiosity and because we 
thought doing so made us mannish. One visit made 
quite a man of us. 

Just about the time I put on my first pair of long 
pants I discovered the young ladies who were growing 
up around me, and my first notice found them in the 
beautiful budding spring time of their adolescence. 
My experience in Allen Street did not tend to make my 
interest in girls the vague, smouldering, undefined 
commotion such an interest generally is in a boy of 
fifteen. I saw, alluringly, busts, hips and legs, the 
rhythm of bodily form and movement. My interest 
was excited by the tales of affairs with girls, boast- 
ingly related by Ludlow Street Don Juans. I was not 
only sex-conscious but sex-sensitive. It was a relent- 
less craving. 

Nice girls dreaded the gang. They gave the corner 
hangout a wide berth. Boolkie and his regulars 
greeted them with outspoken intentions, and drove 

[ 67 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


them away. But the gang had its female followers, 
who were admiringly called ‘‘tough babies.’’ Though 
I was girl-crazy, I could not stand the tough babies. 
They were unfeminine little bummies, unkempt, harsh- 
spoken and utterly without the shy charm of the flower 
breaking out of the bud, the rare quality that drew me 
to the nice girls. The test of the matter, most likely, 
is that the tough baby was too ready to hand, and I was 
characteristically after the hard to get. The nice girls 
were elusive and dreadfully afraid of a bad name. 
Mothers let their boys run wild, but the girls had to 
account for every minute. The best I got was a few 
moments’ passing talk on a stoop. 

I was not crazy about any one girl—it was girls in 
general. Sam Rakowsky, Hymie Rubin and I formed 
a secretive clique of girl chasers. But we soon lost out 
as the nice girls told one another that we were inclined 
to be fresh. Fresh meant trying to kiss them. We 
kissed but a few times but tried often. 

Sam got himself a job as an All Day Tramp, the 
name we gave to messenger boys whose soldier-like 
caps bore a brass plate with the initials A. D. T. (Amer- 
ican District Telegraph). His worldly education grew 
in leaps and bounds. He was familiar with every 
joint in town. He was a directory of dives, brothels, 
resorts and theatres. He told racy stories of places 
and persons. A messenger boy sees and knows every- 
thing and everyone of interest. 

Sam had an engaging manner and an inquisitive 
nature, which was a combination to get results. When 
in a tight corner Sam sang a song. He knew all the 
latest hits of the burlesque and variety stage and, if 
need be, could accompany them with a jig. He had 

[ 68 ] | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


ambitions as a song-and-dance artist. Sam/’s nosiness 
once brought us pell-mell into the back room of a saloon 
in Mulberry Bend. It was the headquarters of a mur- 
derous gang. They were suspicious of us. It looked 
threatening for the sheenies when Sam placed himself 
in the middle of the room and broke out, strongly, in 
song, a highly smutty thing he picked up in a black and 
tan joint in Hell’s Kitchen. He brought down the 
house. We were welcomed as entertainers making 
the rounds. Fortunately, Sam’s ambitions had led us 
to while away summer evenings in achieving certain 
blends of harmonious effects of the latest rag tunes. 
Kimboldened by Sam’s success, and the fact that the 
roughnecks threw coins at Sam’s feet, we put our heads 
together in the approved quartet fashion and gave a 
little concert. We left the place with several beers 
inside of us and sixty cents in our pockets. Then Sam 
remembered the place he wanted to take us to when 
he stumbled into the back room. It was the Five Points 
cellar places, where scrubwomen, mostly past middle 
age, begrimed, frowsy, boozed up, were available to the 
scanty purses of boys. Later, when tips were running 
high, Sam introduced us to the fifty-cent houses on 
Mott and Hlizabeth Streets, where was beginning to de- 
velop a large Italian colony. Pimps on the street pulled 
at us, dragged us into doorways and cried their draw- 
ing card—‘‘imported girlies, young—very young’’; 
that was the attraction. And we found nothing mis- 
leading in their advertisement. The girls were young, 
very young, ten to fourteen years old, and imported, 
imported by Italian padrones, importers of live-stock 
only: pleasure girls, boy and girl street musicians, 
children acrobats, crippled and deformed children for 
[ 69 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


begging; and when such importations were stopped 
only by the horrors exposed by their own excesses, 
they became respectable importers of mine and rail- 
road peons. The Elizabeth Street joints were crude 
and dirty places, and Hymie Rubin, rather sensitive 
and soft-hearted, turned from them in disgust, saying 
he minded most the little girls’ white, bewildered faces. 
He offended Sam Rakowsky terribly when he said the 
little girls made him think of Sam’s sisters, of whom 
Sam had the small number of six. (Some ten years 
later Hymie married one of Sam’s sisters.) Hymie 
preferred the Five Points scrubs because they were 
cheap and did not seem to be human beings. 


[70] 


II 


“‘Don’t think your education is finished. It has only 
begun. ’’ 

In this wise Uncle Philip dampened my jubilant feel- 
ings when I brought home a diploma showing that I 
was a public school graduate. And that is Philip: 
nothing satisfies him. Yet I, too, should have realized 
how little my public school education amounted to. 
I found the school lessons one big cinch. It called for 
no effort to keep up with the classes that progressed at 
the pace set by the dozen or so slow pupils in a class 
of fifty. What we really got was a smattering knowl- 
edge on a variety of subjects. One teacher, alone, 
taught us for a half-year term. She spent five hours a 
day with fifty restless imps whom she was expected to 
instruct in everything from arithmetic to zoology. It 
was a heart-breaking task for the teacher and a dull 
session for the pupil. It became tiresome to hear day- 
long the same spiritless voice droning away at dates, 
sums, platitudes and scolding preachments. Every 
morning there was an assembly of classes before the 
principal, Dr. Berne, a gross, red-headed bully of a 
man, who, after reading a verse from the Scriptures, 
would fiercely demand excellent conduct, the high 
ideal of this schoolmaster. 

Unruly boys were sent to the principal’s office to be 
summarily dealt with by him. Dr. Berne wore a heavy 
signet ring on his little finger. The outlines of that 
ring were cruelly impressed on many boys’ faces. But 
the boys won out in the end. The school had a shock- 

[71] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


ing number of truants and Dr. Berne’s resignation 
followed upon a nervous breakdown brought on about 
the time Dago Jack drew a shining stiletto from his 
shirt and threatened him. 

I expected to go to work after graduating from 
school. Father could not work much. He spent most 
of his time sitting by the window gasping for air. 
I knew extra earnings were badly needed, but Uncle 
Philip decreed City College. 

‘Don’t forget, Meyer, do you hear!’’ he said, 
‘‘you’re going to be a lawyer.”’ 

City College was a shock after the easy snap I had 
at school. It was altogether different. City College... 
housed in the rusty old chapel on Twenty-third Street; 
vine-covered, with an air of scholarly detachment; of 
cloister quiet and dignity. Absent was the tedium 
of public school. Here we had to keep step with the 
brisk pace set by the teachers. Backward scholars 
were dropped by the way. . . . Every hour, with the 
taking up of a new subject, we marched to a different 
classroom and enjoyed a refreshing change of per- 
sonality. There were no soft snaps: each study, 
directed by a specialized instructor, had to be known 
thoroughly. 


[72] 


lit 


The Hast Side is growing, looming up and spreading 
out. The small wooden houses with their slanting 
roofs, the Georgian brick houses with their garrets 
and the makeshift shop-buildings are being displaced 
by tall structures, great tenements reared side to side, 
back to back, with a tiny space between called airshafts, 
and no sooner are they ready than they are jammed 
with people. Ground is either sacred or costly. The 
builders are magicians. The houses spring up, as it 
were, overnight and the number of rooms per square 
foot is greater by tenfold. A small area set off by a 
thin wall of lathe and plaster is a room. And the 
miracle of paying the rents exacted is accomplished by 
the number of boarders you can crowd into the so- 
called rooms. Great big shop buildings are erected to 
take care of the fast-growing clothing contractors’ 
business. Now we have sweatshops on a larger scale, 
but work is as scarce as ever. Every day brings its 
new flock of greenhorns, with little or no money, eager 
for a job at any pay at all. 

I feel keenly responsive to all the flow and activity 
about me. I am thinking hard of how I am going to fit 
into it all. I try to be as impressive as I know how 
with the greenhorns. I like to think people look up to 
me. As I pass they look after me and I can feel them 
thinking: there goes Meyer Hirsch. He amounts to 
something. He is getting on. He carries himself 
manly, he’s tall, got good shoulders, a handsome head 
and there’s lots of brains in that head. How I thrill 

[73] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


to it-—what people think. I am convinced that is the 
big thing in life, there is nothing else; you are nothing 
but what people think you are. ... The pious say, 
that’s the clever lad who harangued the congregation 
in Hebrew so eloquently, read the portion of the Law 
fluently and without a single mistake, and, what’s more, 
he can interpret a page of the Talmud! The worldly 
say, he’s got a practical head, is a school graduate and 
now is in College: a boy who will get on in this world. 
The sentimental observe, he’s a blessing to his parents, 
an only child, but such a talented child, a long life to 
him. ... If they’re not thinking these things, I am 
thinking them about myself ... and it gives me a lot 
of pleasure. 

These days I don’t often show myself in the company 
of the Ludlow Streeters. The gang has grown in num- 
bers and has taken a definite character. It is nothing 
more than a nest of thieves. I was thinking of drop- 
ping the gang until I thought out that here was a 
sizable asset to a young lawyer—a number of potential 
prisoners at the bar. I looked upon every one of these 
boastful fools as rich meat and drink for me,—still on 
the hoof and vine, but mine eventually. . . . Boolkie 
knew my ambition to be a lawyer. He said it will 
be a great thing for the gang to have its own mouth- 
piece. ... So I keep in touch with their secrets and 
the tricks they are turning. 

Davie Solomon has taken seriously to poetry. His 
face is melancholy and drawn, and he is like one who 
walks and yet dreams. He has become a disciple of one 
Walt Whitman, a sort of freebooter in poetry. This 
derisive description was applied to this Whitman by 
our Hinglish teacher in City College. I try to talk Davie 

[74] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


out of making a serious vocation of poetry. It doesn’t 
pay, and his mother, as it is, has a devilish time grind- 
ing out a living from her horseradish mill. However, 
he may outgrow poetry as he sloughed off religion. 
He is an atheist now and makes quite a fuss over it. 
His mother is very unhappy about it, and Melamud 
Mordecai is sure an evil spirit has lodged in him. Love 
is Davie’s God, and Beauty his handmaiden. He is in 
love with Esther Brinn, or he merely uses her as a 
target for his poems. Writing a poem to her seems to 
satisfy him. ... And Avrum Toledo talks to Esther 
for hours. He, probably, is in love with her, too, and 
is quite satisfied as long as she listens to his theories on 
life as it-should-be-lived. He is a cross between a 
philosophical anarchist and a single-taxing Socialist. 
They won’t mix, these doctrines, formulae, world- 
righting schemes, he is assured by the catholic and 
dogmatic discussionists, but Avrum carries on, ear- 
nestly, to his intellectual love. ... I listen to Davie’s 
poems and Avrum’s convolutions, but I find them hard 
to bear, even for Esther’s sake, for I, too, have my 
passion, and it is not poetry or theories. It is just 
Getting Something. Esther says, while she under- 
stands Davie and Avrum, she finds me a Mystery. 
Ksther Brinn is a girl of about sixteen whom we all 
respect. Sheis natural. She is not afraid to talk with 
boys and it is hard to imagine anyone getting fresh 
with her. She has hardly begun to mature, physically, 
and was not the kind of a girl to worry me, sexually. 
Being a Mystery, she found me interesting. I was a 
Mystery to Esther Brinn because her mind was mysti- 
cized by the poetic and theoretical slants she got on life 
from the Davies and Avrums, who were getting to be 
[79 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


as thick as flies around our way. They pictured a 
world that wasn’t or couldn’t be, and I was trying to 
get something in the world—that is. . . . Esther could 
not understand my being friends with Boolkie and the 
regulars, and she took me to task for being fresh with 
girls. ... Yet I enjoyed being with Esther.... I 
Suppose we egoists liked her because she was a good 
listener. Today she was but a slight, growing girl. It 
was a few years later that she sprang out of the 
chrysalis of the awkward age and dazzled our whole 
beings with her exquisite beauty, a beauty that tore 
Davie’s heart, rent Avrum’s soul and tantalized my 
every conscious moment. . . . But Davie was the 
prophet of Esther’s beauty, for even now he described 
her in his poems as she was to be . . . perhaps he saw 
it now... poets are a mystery to me.... He saw 
her face, at any rate: he had no eyes for bodies then. 
He spoke of her features as having the delicately 
chiseled outlines of a rare cameo, a cameo shining in 
the sombre frame of her black hair . . . how her eyes 
glowed and shadowed like true agate ... how her 
face had the pallor of marble in the first light of day. 
He saw her hands, frail and transparent; when in re- 
pose like Chinese lilies, and when moving, like snow- 
birds’ wings aflutter in the moonlight, and heard her 
voice . . . like the kiss of a zephyr on a silver bell. 
Iam sure it is Lillie Rosenfeld, the Teaser, who told 
Esther I was fresh. Lillie is the kind of a girl who 
deliberately coquettes and then bitterly complains. 
She belongs to that class of sinners who fool their con- 
sciences by playing the réle of injured innocence. 
Lilie is unusual. She comes upon you like a summer 
sunbeam in a cool, dark room. .. . Golden hair, dark 
[ 76 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


eyebrows, darker lashes, sea-green eyes, a pink and 
white complexion and luscious red lips have won her 
the name—F'rench Baby Doll, and her dangerous game 
of tag earned her the private name—The Teaser. She 
is hardly older than sixteen, but is already in the high 
flare of womanhood, plump and well-rounded out... . 
She has a way of tossing her shimmering head, full- 
opening and then half-shutting her strange eyes,—and 
you begin to lose your balance,—but it is the undulat- 
ing curves of her shapely body that make you dizzy. 
And so she tempts and leads you on. And she flies 
from you, flies from the public place of the stoop where 
there is security, flies to the dim recess of the hallway 
and corners herself under the staircase. Here you 
become delirious from inhaling a fragrant, ravishing 
incense, her panting breath near your mouth.... 
But—that is all. . . . She berates you and beats you off 
and you wake up to witness all the tricks of her stock 
scene of injured innocence. . . . And after each rebuff 
I vow, ‘‘I’ll get you yet, French Baby Doll, you damned 
Teaser, I’ll get you yet.’’... And I am not the 
only one. 

Yetta Uditsky somehow always arrives in time to 
behold virtue triumphant in the person of Lillie lam- 
basting the villain. The play is so much to her liking 
and so realistically performed that she jumps from 
the audience and joins the action, pushing me from the 
hallway, crying, ‘‘Go away, you loafer; I’ll tell your 
father on you.’’ Yetta we call the Queen of Sheba. 
Hymie Rubin once told her that she is so lovely that 
even though Solomon had eight hundred wives he 
would find her irresistible. As a matter of fact, Hymie 
meant that she was a big, slovenly, overgrown lump of 

[77] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


a girl with dirty blonde hair whom no one would care 
to look upon a second time. Yetta grew up to help 
make woman suffrage history and lead the girl waist- 
makers’ union to victory. She married a Gentile col- 
lege professor and wrote the best part of his books on 
economics. But we thought Yetta an extremely dull 
girl: I guess because her hair did not shine. No boy 
bothered her, but she was busy fighting away boys from 
other girls. 

Harry Wotin, Archie’s brother, now a heavily seri- 
ous young man of nineteen and a medical student, has 
been paying marked attention to Hannah Weingrad, 
daughter of Jake Weingrad, the fence for boy thieves. 
Weingrad ordered him to keep away from Hannah, 
calling him an unpedigreed schnorrer (beggar), and 
said he is onto Harry’s game. ‘‘You nothing, you; 
you’re looking for a girl to pay your way through 
college.’’ . . . Besides Weingrad was doing an active 
business with Archie Wotin, and the respectable syna- 
gogue member did not want a thief’s brother for 
son-in-law. 


[78 ] 


IV 


Boolkie comes with bad news. Archie Wotin, Dopie 
Ikie Schneider and Dago Jack Marinari are under 
arrest. A little matter of burglary. Boolkie bewails 
most the loss of Archie the Gun. 

‘‘1’m good and sore on Archie,’’ says the bereaved 
chieftain. ‘‘I puts him hep to easy money, makes him 
the best little dip (pickpocket) in the business, and why 
don’t he stick to it? No, he don’t listen to me but he 
follows that rat-faced sonofagun, Issie Weingrad, who 
wises him up to a store what they can get into by 
squeezing Archie through the fanlight, Archie being so 
skinny and quick with his body. Well, the bulls nailed 
him and the Dope and the Dago. And now they’re 
going to ride. Aw, if Archie ’d stick to his line, and 
him as good as any Gun what ever snatched a poke, 
gee, he’d be a Cannon.”’ 

My erstwhile pals took a ride, a ferry-boat ride over 
the river. Being boys of no importance politically, of 
no family influence, without money to buy legal talent 
and bribe policemen, justice was meted out to them 
with striking swiftness. Such quick shrift was made 
of the three little nobodies’ case that.a week later 
Boolkie dolefully reported that his pals ‘‘got a bit in 
the Ref.’’... The court committed them for an 
eighteen months’ minimum sojourn in the dreaded 
House of Refuge on Randall’s Island. 

I was peeved with myself that the gangsters’ 
troubles did not in some way redound to my glory. It 
started my brain scheming. I began to haunt the en- 

[79 } 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


trance to Hssex Market Magistrates’ Court, the Bast 
Side’s police tribunal.... It was a busy mill of 
agonized humanity. I eavesdropped and was pushed 
away. ...I lingered ... and hurried away, busily 

. returned, aimlessly, idly curious . . . but always 
watching and listening, avidly ... till I pieced to- 
gether conversations, cases, important names, secrets 

. observed the methods of the artful runners as 
they snapped up dazed clients for their lawyer- 
employers ... watched out for the Who’s Who of 
bigwigs . . . studied the politicians, always smiling, 
affable, cordial, handshaking, and after a while I smiled 
and nodded and even shook hands with Highmuck- 
amucks, for I soon got onto the fact that they did not 
know everyone they were so friendly to... and I 
showed off like a big gun before the ignorant and be- 
wildered relatives of prisoners who waited at the 
prison-yard gate.... It was here that I met Maxie 
Freund, a boy about my own age, in America only two 
years, and who also had ambitions leading to the legal 
profession. He joined in the game with me . . . would 
hurry away, return, whisper in my ear, and then I 
would make an important entry in a notebook ... and 
we had a good time being impressive in the eyes of the 
foreigners. . . . I tired of the make-believe. I wanted 
the real thing. I just itched to get into the courtroom, 
which was always jammed. I tried many times to get 
in, but Black Riley, the fat cop doorman, barred my 
way. Sol began to cultivate Black Riley, a huge man, 
mainly about the girth and neck, with great black mus- 
taches and bushy eyebrows that compete with mus- 
taches. 

[ 804 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘‘Can I get you something, Captain?’’ I said, deferen- 
tially. 

‘““What can the likes 0’ you get me, you little 
sheenie?’’ he asked. 

‘Anything you want,’’ I pleaded. 

‘‘Very well, there’s sumthing you can get me.”’ 

‘‘Yes, Captain,’’ I responded eagerly. 

‘‘Get the hell outa here,’’ he roared. 

‘‘Yes, sir,’? I answered and marched off, only to 
return a few minutes later. 

‘¢And,’’ said he, ‘‘did you get it?”’ 

‘‘Yes, Captain, I got it good and plenty’’; which 
amuses him, and while he is busy laughing I walk past 
him into the courtroom and squeeze in between two 
women on a bench. 

Mine is not a seat of vantage. I am oppressed by 
heavy elbows, elbows indignant at my sudden, discom- 
forting intrusion. My view is blurred and barred by 
big round forms, the slow moving, heaving bodies of 
policemen, lawyers, detectives, and bondsmen. I wish 
they were not so well fed. . . . My first impression is 
a confusion of voices, gruff and shrill, harsh and 
squeaky: outside in the prison yard every little while 
an angry bell blares, a hoarse voice abuses stamping 
horses, and ironshod wheels detonate on irregular flag- 
stones; a sharp click, a large steel key unleashes a rasp- 
ing lock, rusty hinges groan... dragging, shuffling, 
weary footfalls . . . slam-bang, click, rasp, groan, the 
door of steel bars is flung back into its steel frame and 
made fast again . . . and prisoners and accusers, man- 
hunters and defenders and prosecutors face the court 
to pule and whine, plead, denounce, impale, deny, miti- 
gate and exaggerate in tones ranging from a mutter to 

[si] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


a peroration, and amid the babble and hubbub there 
comes to me an even, strong voice rising above the tor- 
rents of sound like the steady wind above a downpour 
of rain. 

I see nothing but shifting backs. The dominating, 
leading voice must belong to the judge. He calls the 
next case. A husky voice cries the name. The attend- 
ant guarding the gate to the enclosure of the judge’s 
bench takes up the name in bellowing tone, hurling it 
to the guard of the prisoners’ pen, who shrieks it down 
a corridor and an affrighted defendant squeaks, 
‘‘Me...me...my name.’’... An interminable 
reading turgid with legal phrases and repetitions .. . 
larceny ... larceny. ... Wherefore. ... Wherefore 
... larceny ...more jumbles of wherefores and 
whereofs.... Clothing. ... Jewelry . . . familiar 
words ... at last ... and they cause a stirring and 
buzzing in the benches. .. . A womanrises .. . ‘‘Yes 
sir, mine, that’s right ... stole my jewelry. ...”? 
A gavel bangs. ... The attendants shout: ‘‘Order in 
the court; keep still; sit down.’’ . 

A monotonous speaker ... must be a lawyer... 
says the same thing many times and then ends up by 
asking for more time. ... The judge marks the case 
off . . . an upheaval in the benches . . . protests 
against delay by accuser and her witnesses... a jam 
in the corridor. . . . ‘‘Keep moving; keep moving; hats 
off until you get out.’’?... Protests and apologies, 
and the aisle is cleared, but in the meantime another 
case has been called. ... A hair-pulling match. Two 
women playing dual roles of plaintiff and defendant 
because of counter-charges . . . they lock horns, so to 
speak, and their children bawl and their respective 

[ 82) 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


husbands start a scrap on the sidelines. Both women 
claim victory and vindication: both have been found 
guilty and bound over to keep the peace. ... A lively 
procession of cases all drowned in words . . . the in- 
terest wanes, and suddenly there is an electric murmur 
in the crowd—ah—a murder case. The most serious 
charge is disposed of quickest of all. ... Nobail.... 
Grand Jury. ... Again starts the array of drunks 
and disorderlies, pushcart cases, assaults, larcenies 
and burglaries. ... It is getting dark, the benches 
begin to clear. At last I get a full view of the judge. 
He was more impressive when I did not see him. His 
Honor was a little man with a whiskey-burned face, a 
completely bald head and the funniest pug nose. His 
intimates called him Pugsey Kelly from the Fourth 
Ward. 

Maxie Freund awaits me. He marvels at my success 
in getting into the court and staying there so long. ‘‘I 
got a pull,’’ I tell him, laconically. 

A few days later a tearful woman stopped me 
and told me her husband was arrested for snatching 
a pocketbook containing seventy-one cents from a 
woman’s hand. She said the charge was unbelievable; 
that her husband was a sober, steady buttonhole-maker, 
and she can’t for anything understand why they picked 
on him. Anyway, she said, a thousand times innocent, 
it does not matter—he is in jail charged with the crime 
and she doesn’t know what to do. It is near the court- 
house and several of the runners edge up closer, scent- 
ing game in the offing. One of them tries to draw the 
woman aside, but I put myself in his way, whispering 
in his ear, ‘‘Lay off, I’m taking care of this for Black 
Riley.’? . . . He looks me over, and I turn my back on 

[ 83 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


him. I warn the woman to talk with no one, warn her 
to be careful of the men around the courts, telling her 
they are nothing more than spies for the police. When 
she came to me, I told her, modestly, she was lucky, for 
I had a pull with the court. I placed her on the steps 
of the courthouse, bidding her to observe me. I stepped 
up to Black Riley, begged his ear a moment, saying, 
‘Can you recommend me to a lawyer? I got a pick- 
pocket case.’?... Riley pats my shoulder, saying, 
‘*You’ve come to the right man... . Take your case 
to Moe Levenson; you’ll find him across the street in 
the Silver Dollar Saloon. Tell him it’s my case, and 
I looks for my full split. . . . That’s right, my boy, in 
the back room, and keep me posted what he gets out 
of it.”’... I take the woman aside and say, ‘Well, 
it’s a serious matter, have no doubt, but my friend, the 
boss of the court, will help me out. The first thing to 
do is to get the right lawyer, and the right lawyer 
always is the personal friend of the judge.’’ My last 
remark was the stock in trade bait of the runners. T 
didn’t miss one of their cues. I guide her into the 
back room of the Silver Dollar Saloon and look up Moe 
Levenson, whom I find in a private room playing 
pinochle. I inform him Black Riley has sent me to him 
with a case. He thinks I am in trouble. But I men- 
tion, as though it were a long-established fact, that I 
and Black Riley are working together. . . . Moe is not 
very pleased, he’s wondering how his own runner 
missed the case. 

Levenson talks with the woman, shakes his head 
sadly, and says, ‘‘Terrible. Terrible. It’s going to be 
hard. It’s going to be hard.’’? The distracted woman 
tears at her knotted handkerchief, and grows pale. He 

[ 84] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


turns to me, saying, ‘‘I leave it to you, how can I ask 
my friend the judge to help me out in a case of this 
kind, snatching a pocketbook from a woman’s hand? 
Terrible.’? The woman pleads, able only to repeat one 
imploring word, ‘‘Please, please, please.’’? Levenson 
strokes the side of his face and remarks, ‘‘It’s going 
to cost a lot of money, yeh, a lot of money. . . . How 
much have you got?’’?’ The woman unties her handker- 
chief and places on the table crumpled bills amounting 
to twenty-six dollars. Levenson shows her a sorrow- 
fully disappointed face. He says, ‘‘That money is 
nothing.’? The woman quivers. ‘‘Nothing!’’ she ex- 
claims, ‘‘why that’s all, every cent, we’ve got in the 
world.’’? Levenson rises, absent-mindedly pockets the 
money, saying, ‘‘If you love your husband you will 
start out at once to beg, borrow or steal money. That’s 
the only thing that will save him from a long term in 
prison. Remember, we are in America, money works 
and money talks in America.’’... The woman is 
thunderstruck. ‘‘But he is innocent,’’ she cries... . 
‘<T know,’’ says Levenson, dryly, ‘‘that’s what they all 
say.’’ .. . Levenson takes her in hand and counsels 
her to go out among her landsleit (country people) and 
make a collection for her husband’s defense, tells her 
to go to relatives, pawn jewelry, sell household fur- 
niture, in short, do anything to raise money... . 
Levenson takes me aside and instructs me to stick close 
to her, not to overlook any good bets and to inspect her 
home and see what furniture she has.... I go home 
with the woman. The first thing that strikes my eye 
isa piano. I look at the piano, meaningly. The woman 
says, ‘‘We went without clothes, without many things 
to save up to buy this piano for our boy. He has 
[ 85 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


talent. ... It will break his heart to lose the piano... 
but we can’t let his father sit in jail for the sake of a 
piano.’’ She goes out to borrow money and I report 
back to Levenson. . . . ‘‘A piano,’’ he muses, ‘‘that’s 
all right, I’ll take the piano for a part of the fee, my 
girl will need a piano pretty soon.’’ Levenson sends 
me with truckmen to have the piano removed to his 
home. . . . The following morning Levenson appeared 
in court as counsel for the accused buttonhole-maker. 
Without inquiring into the merits of the case, he had 
it adjourned for a week. During the week that ensued 
the woman managed to borrow eleven dollars. Leven- 
son again adjourned the case, and the following week 
he was satisfied that the nine dollars more that the 
woman brought him was the limit of this particular 
case’s resources. It then turned out that the button- 
hole-maker was caught among those running in the 
street when the stop thief cry was raised. The pocket- 
book was not found on him when arrested, and when 
the hearing was finally held the complainant said the 
buttonhole-maker did not in any wise resemble the man 
who tore the pocketbook from her hand. He was dis- 
charged, and the poor woman, who had spent her last 
dollar, sacrificed her boy’s piano and borrowed from 
every person she could approach, felt satisfied that 
money bought her husband’s release. 

F'rom time to time I picked up a case and brought it 
to Black Riley, who got his split from Levenson, who 
gave me a little rake-off. It was now two months since 
my pals were sentenced to the Ref, and one evening at 
the bar in the Silver Dollar Saloon I told Black Reilly 
about their fix. He consulted Levenson. He spoke 
about a little fixing in the right place, altering records, 

[ 86 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


errors in commitment papers, and then effecting their 
release on technical writs. It would take a little money. 
Got to take care of the boys on both ends of the line. 
Well, a personal case. Three hundred might do it. 
I told Levenson the sum was even beyond imagining. 
He replied that it showed I had no imagination. Can’t 
try a case without imagination. He then illustrated 
imaginative methods in case work. 

Levenson said: ‘‘First thing to imagine in a case is, 
who don’t want to be mixed up in the particular mess 
in hand? Next thing to imagine is, how can you mix up 
that person nice and messy? When your imagination 
carries you that far, you can imagine the rest. Now 
here’s your case. Three boys. Thieves. Well, they’re 
stealing something, ain’t they? Who are they selling 
that something to? Somebody, no? Somebody’s get- 
ting fat on their stealings. Easy to see that Somebody 
don’t want a brass band announcing what’s going on 
and he don’t want to stop making easy money, and cer- 
tainly he won’t want no criminal charges. Well, Mr. 
Somebody will pay good to stop the noise, and that’s 
what you call hush gelt (money). When you got all 
you can from Somebody, your imagination keeps on, if 
it’s any good. The three thieves belong to a gang. A 
lot of pals feel sorry for them. If the pals ain’t flush 
then they can go out to pull off a job to raise the money 
to get their pals out of trouble.’’ 

Levenson’s hints fell on fruitful soil. I got right on 
the job. I talked it over with Boolkie. He shouted, 
‘God damn him, Weingrad ought to put up to get the 
boys out. He’s been getting the gravy out of all their 
jobs, and his son put them up to their last trick. I’m 
going in and make that old bum come across.’’ I told 

[ 87 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Boolkie to let me handle the matter. I said, apropos 
of my teacher, ‘‘Boolkie, in these legal affairs you got 
to have imagination. Leave it to me.’?... I went to 
see Weingrad. I mentioned, after a little talk on many 
subjects, that I was working around the courts and 
that I had made many friends among the detectives. 
I dropped my voice to a hissing whisper, saying, 
‘‘Weingrad, be careful. They’re working on your 
ease.’’? . . . His mouth dropped. He ejaculated: 
“They! Who, who?’’... I put up a defensive hand, 
‘‘Please,’’ I said, ‘‘don’t ask me any more.’’.. 
‘‘Tell me, I beg you,’’ he shouts... . I tell Weingrad 
that I did not want to be mixed up in a criminal case, 
that I had gone far enough in giving him the warning. 
I added, ‘‘I can’t help saying, Weingrad, it looks bad 
for you, and you got to do something.”’ . . . By this 
time he is quite unnerved. He begs me to find out what 
he can do to save himself, and I promise to report that 
night. ... Well, Weingrad was a hard giver-up. It 
took three days of screwing him up with fear before 
he came across with the necessary three hundred dol- 
lars. He did so when he was overwhelmingly convinced 
that he and his son were about to be arrested upon the 
evidence furnished by the imprisoned boys. 

In about ten days Archie, Ikie and Jack returned to 
old scenes, pastimes and practices. The gang rejoiced 
and féted them as heroes. I was hailed as a miracle 
worker. .. . Maxie Freund has attached himself to 
me as a sort of sounding board. He grimaces, winks, 
and mysteriously hints that I have a secret tremendous 
pull. He plays my game with rare cunning. Maxie is 
a master of the art of implying and imputing anything 
he may wish to put over without in any way committing 

[ 88 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


himself to a factual statement. He smells of the sub- 
rosa and reeks of the skeleton closet. He irritates 
Boolkie by appearing suddenly under his left shoulder. 
Thieves hate to have anyone behind them. But Maxie 
knows how to assuage him. He whispers, insinuat- 
ingly, ‘‘I’m with you. I’m with you. It’s all right,” 
and thereby worries Boolkie that he has complete 
knowledge of everything; whereas, he really knows 
nothing. But it is a good way of surprising secrets 
out of people. 

A thief with a jail term to his credit has the standing 
of a savant with an honorary degree. Archie now 
speaks with sophomoric assurance. He says: ‘‘Say, 
we’re wised up to a lot of stuff now.’’? The gang listens 
intently to the wisdom learned in the reform school. 
How to ‘‘roll a lush’’ (rob a drunken man), how to 
practice the fine points of ‘‘stick up’’ (highway rob- 
bery), how to make a ‘‘getaway’’ under varying cir- 
cumstances, how to ‘‘crack’’ a small safe, ‘‘can- 
opener’’ fashion, or blow open a big safe with ‘‘soup’’ 
(nitroglycerine), how to ‘‘jimmy’’ doors, drawers and 
windows, how to snap a lock, how to use skeleton keys, 
where to dispose of ‘‘swag’’ and where to buy bur- 
glar’s tools, how to ‘‘fix’’ (bribe) cops and judges, and 
many other delightful aids to a happy life of crime 
and bravado. According to Archie his fellow students 
in the reform school were busy planning jobs to pull 
off npon their release, tipping each other off and work- 
ing in concert to outwit the ‘‘screws’’ (keepers). He 
recounted \glibly the scandals of the menagerie and 
told what happens when a number of young animals 
are locked up together. 


[ 89 ] 


Vv 


Berel and Barney have been teaching each cther, 
swapping a Yiddish lesson for an English one. It is 
funny to hear them. Barney can’t grind out the gut- 
turals and Berel does weird things with the vowel 
sounds. . . . A gusty November evening. <A cold 
drizzle drives the Discussionists to Berel’s warm cel- 
lar. ... Berel lights up the large lamp on the work 
bench and Barney Finn is revealed hunched up on the 
sagging couch. ... Even Lutz laughs to hear Barney 
Finn, the lanky Irish Yankee, talk the sing-songy Yid- 
dish of Berel’s Bessarabia. ... It doesn’t take long 
for the ball of argument to start rolling. . . . Barney’s 
hobby, Reform Laws, is being kicked about. . . . Legis- 
lation is Barney’s Savior of Mankind. He would 
legislate light, air, water, paint, space, sanitary toilets, 
washtubs and bathtubs into tenement homes; justice 
for poor prisoners and litigants; clean streets, pave- 
ments, parks, playgrounds, libraries, night schools, 
clubs, nurseries and clinics; and better moral and in- 
dustrial conditions. ... He is answered. ... Laws 
are futile . .. palliatives, expedients, soon discarded 
and forgotten ... makeshifts .. . do not get at the 
roots of wrongs and evil . . . fine codes of laws existed 
from the time man became gregarious . . . make 
people evasive, hypocritical and criminal . . . made by 
the ruling class and are cruel and one-sided. 

They think Barney is squelched, but he is unruffled 
and answers: ‘‘Let me get my laws passed and then 
I’ll tell you whether they’re futile.’ 

[90 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Barney says he learned Yiddish and lived in the 
Ghetto in an effort to understand the Jews. He con- 
fesses that the more he gets to know the Jews the more 
they puzzle him. He can’t make them out; so many 
contradictions and contrasts; no two Jews seem alike. 
‘‘You know,’’ he confesses, ‘‘we outsiders think of the 
Jews of the world as one type.’’... By the time 
the Discussionists are done with him he is ready to 
revise another popular idea he holds, namely, that the 
Jews are unfailingly clannish, highly unified, and pre- 
sent, consistently, a solid front against the rest of 
the world. 

Philip says, ‘‘ Barney, you are simple-minded where 
the Jews are concerned. Solid front—bah! Clan- 
nish—puh! Unified—ha, ha! ... Ask the Tsar’s gov- 
ernment: they torment and kill Jews, deny them the 
ordinary rights of education, trade and travel. But 
who do you think lends millions to the T'sar’s govern- 
ment? Who—but the German, English and French 
Jews. Who lends money to the Roumanian govern- 
ment, which treats its Jews worse than dogs? English 
Jews, German Jews, Italian Jews.”’ 

Abe Lewkowitz, who is working his head off to 
organize a garment workers’ union, adds angrily, 
‘And who sweats and cheats the Jewish workman in 
America? Jewish contractors, Polish, Russian and 
Galician Jews.’’ 

‘“Who squeezes the contractors?’’ demands Philip, 
injecting his pet prejudice; ‘‘who but the German 
Jews?’’ | 

Michel Cahn chimes in, ‘‘And who cramps us in 
stinking, lousy holes and gouges us for big rents, eh, 
who?—American and German Jews.”’ 

[91 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Bennie Finkelstein says, impatiently, ‘‘Well, boys, 
come make your point. The dollar knows no brother.’’ 

Simon Gordin rises and takes the floor. His contri- 
bution to a discussion is nothing less than a speech. 
He prefaces all his remarks with a statement that he 
views all subjects only against their historical back- 
ground. He starts off in the minor key of a practiced 
orator and then rises to a crescendo of eloquence. 

‘“‘T say to you, Barney Finn, would you understand 
the Jews? Then go out into the world, dwell in each 
land, and try to understand every people on the face 
of the earth. Jews are not Jews. They are Germans, 
Russians, Britons, Italians, Turks, Africans, and so on. 
They are nationals; narrow, broad, petty, big, noble, 
ereedy, ideal, material, stupid, dull, ignorant, liberal, 
bigoted, intellectual and enlightened. They are the 
composite people of the world. They have all the high 
and low characteristics of the human race. They have 
the physical stigma of all the peoples of the world. .. . 
Go back through the ages, see the rush and sweep of 
conquering armies, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, 
Persian, Greek and Roman, bringing rapine’s infusion 
of new blood into the veins of Israel; see the stamp of 
the conquerors’ laws, customs, manners and cultures; 
see the wide range and horrors of the dispersal, see 
the excesses visited upon the exiles, the violence of the 
Crusaders and Inguisitors, all bringing more infusions 
of new blood. . . . Go out into the Ghetto and look 
upon the children of the Jews from all lands—and 
behold the peoples of the world.’’ 


[92] 


VI 


The Weingrads prosper. They have moved from the 
petty retailing of odds and ends to the dignity of 
the wholesale piece goods business, and comment is 
being made on their grand style of living since they 
employ aservant girl. . . . Weingrad’s country people 
find his success as so much bitter vinegar in their teeth. 
They say, ‘‘Look at him—so puffed up. His father was 
a shoemaker in our village. But yesterday he himself 
peddled shoe laces and slept on a pushcart in Gold- 
stein’s stable.’’ . . . But today, let us talk of today,— 
the despised shoemaker’s daughter-in-law, herself the 
daughter of a tailor, which calling in the Russian Jew- 
ish Pale is next to a shoemaker in lowliness, puts on a 
magnificent air of a lady of ease as she sits in front of 
her husband’s store. Albeit, the merchant’s wife’s 
dress is use-rumpled and stained, the hand-knitted 
woolen shawl around her hefty shoulders ravelled in 
many places, and her shoes worked out of shape and 
run down at the heels; upon her fat fingers and large 
red ears the blazons of wealth sprinkle, broadcast 
rosy, blue and icy gleams. Mrs. Weingrad’s diamonds 
light up the drab lives of Essex Street housewives with 
the fires of vanity and envy; their sparks burn into the 
vitals of their husbands, who are asked: ‘‘Nu, when— 
let us already see when—you will buy me such knockers 
(sparklers) like Mrs. Weingrad’s. Oi! Yoi! I think 
before I see that I will first live to see the Messiah. 
See you, now, such is the world. A few people have 
all the luck. Diamonds she has, and now she gets a 

[ 93 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


servant girl. And why should she have all the 
luck——”’ 

But my eyes are dazzled by the servant girl, Gretel 
Lipsky, a healthy, buxom greenhorn just off the ship, 
a sort of thirty-second cousin of the Weingrads. Her 
wages is her keep and Mrs. Weingrad’s cast-off cloth- 
ing—if the latter ever happens. She is lodged with the 
Bregsteins in our building because her employers can- 
not possibly squeeze her into their four-room flat, which 
is overcrowded with the parents and their six growing 
children. 

I watch for Gretel. Her work begins at the break of 
day and ends at whatever time the Weingrads decide 
to go to bed. . . . Iam dead gone on Gretel. She does 
not affect me like Lillie, who grips me only when I see 
her. As to Gretel, I just can’t stop thinking of her. 
I wait for hours on the stoop to experience the thrilling 
moment that comes as she demurely slips by. I tremble 
and titillate like subject metal before a powerful mag- 
net. Her mere passing makes me tingle all over. 
Blood rushes to my face. My heart pounds. My tem- 
ples throb and my eyes ache from the concentrated 
stare I give her. And when she is gone the fire dies 
out of me, and I become base, inert iron. ... And I 
have not said a word to her. I don’t know what to 
say. ... The rushing wind of desire sweeps the very 
breath out of me. ... All I know is I want Gretel. 
She is for me—life and force; and without her I am 
lost. . . . I want Gretel, and what I want I must 
have... Gretel. . . Gretel < ; . Gretel... . 2 She 
colors my consciousness with the radiant hues of a gor- 
geous sunset... . I know what I want, I know why 
I need Gretel so badly. I want her to save me from the 

[ 94 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


menace of my lust. ... Lately, a few of the fellows 
were badly burned .. . and I shuddered to think of 
my body eaten by vile disease. . . . I looked upon the 


whiteness, symmetry and soundness of my body as a 
holy thing. And I resolved to stay away from the 
fouling fires of the burning offal heaps in Hlizabeth 
Street . . . not for my soul’s sake, but for my 
body’s. . . . And Gretelisa pure flame... . 

Gretel is not a beauty in the ordinary sense. Her 
features are irregular. She has large feet and big 
hands. Her ample waist rests upon strong hips. Her 
bosom is full and firm. ... She is as a young and 
sturdy tree. ... Her deep-set eyes are a soft brown, 
like the color of a tree’s bark after the warm rain. 
Her cheeks are like ripe apples, round and tinted. Her 
rough-hewn lips pucker provokingly, and her throat is 
as the ivory tower of the Song of Songs. Her luxuriant 
hair twines about her head like a thick garland of early 
sumach leaves. 

Tonight I am lucky. Gretel and I meet on the stairs. 
Her breath whisks past my face like a breeze that has 
been philandering in lilac bushes. Her skirt flaps 
against my knees. I stop her. It is dark. I can feel 
her surprise. My hand rests upon her plump arm. 
She starts to go, and at last speech gushes from me, 
passionately. 

‘‘Gretel, Gretel . . . you always run away from me. 
Why? Have I done anything that you should dislike 
me? ... Do you know,—night after night I wait and 
wait but to be near you for that second of your pass- 
ing? Waiting and watching just for a second’s sight 
of you. Gretel, I have died to talk with you, but there’s 


[95 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


no talking with you. You hurry away so. And I want 
to talk with you and tell you a 

I whisper musical Yiddish in her ear. I feel the 
warm flush of her face, hear her breath coming fast, 
and know her bust heaves in tumult. . . . She says she 
cannot understand . . . she cannot believe that I would 
stoop so low as to be friends with a servant girl... 
particularly, since she is a greenhorn and I, an Ameri- 
can college boy. ... And I tell her how I burn with 
love of her, and she puts her hand over my mouth, 
saying it is wrong for her to listen to such talk. ... 
So—with time Gretel comes to tryst with me on the 
stairs, in the hallway, and the sweetest moments are 


the warm nights on the rooftop in the shadow of a 
chimney. ... 


(961 


Vit 


Our kitchen is packed with the Discussionists. Boris 
Udell, the pacifist-nonresistant-evolutionist-vegetarian- 
Tolstoian, brought his fiddle, no doubt intending to 
whistle away the stormy parts of the debate. But no 
tune could rise above tonight’s raging topie. 

DIE UNIE (the Union). 

I am in bed, wondering when it will quiet down and 
let me fall asleep. Abe Lewkowitz, the ardent unionist, 
dominates the talk. He is frantically insistent: ‘‘We 
have talked enough. Act now! Act now!’’ He has 
raised another slogan that is too pathetic and appeal- 
ing to be cried down. ‘‘A little better living—a little 
sweetness out of living—raise the standard of living— 
that’s what the union will do for us and our fellow 
workers.’’ ... His emotion is respected . .. a mo- 
ment’s lull, just long enough for mother’s timid, dry- 
voiced remark to creep in, ‘‘Maybe .. . if there was 
aunion ... maybe, my husband would be alive today, 
and not dead from the shop sickness.’’... I forgot 
to mention that father is dead: moved off like a shadow 
with the setting sun. Seems to me as though he were 
always dead. Another brooding shadow has taken his 
place; mother now sits in his corner. 

‘*Well—aren’t we going to try? What? Wait until 
we are sweated to death?’’ demands Lewkowitz. 

Michel Cahn, the revolutionist, answers him: 
Yes: wait; wait until we are starved and sweated 
to the goading point, then shall we workers rise, rise 
like the hunger-driven masses of France, and destroy 

[97 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the employing class. Don’t prate unionism. Preach 
revolution. Prepare the workers for the class war. 
Bah—unionism. What is it—unionism—just a drug— 
a palliative—just something to sweeten the bitter 
cup—just something to make life a teeny bit better, 
just endurable—endurable enough to make the workers 
put up with wage slavery.”’ 

Boris Ratnofsky, the mildest man in the gathering, 
is an anarchist. He speaks gently. Gently he de- 
scribes the horrors of life, the cruelties that prevail, 
all because governments, institutions, rules, religion, 
marriage and traditions have imprisoned free expres- 
sion. The union, he says, will be another hampering 
of free expression. 

‘“‘T am for the union,’’ breaks in Simon Gordin, the 
Socialist. ‘‘It will teach the worker the force and logic 
of parliamentary action, train him to dispose of his 
problems in an organized, orderly fashion, and, in 
short, prepare him for Socialism. Socialism is not 
possible until we have an educated, self-disciplined 
proletariat. ’’ 

Boris Udell opens his mouth to speak, stops and in- 
stead tunes up his fiddle. 

**That’s it, men, tune up, that’s what all you elements 
need—harmony. Play together, men, and each will get 
what he wants.’’ 

Barney Finn has spoken. Berel is right. He does 
not bang on one’s teapot. 

How is it Uncle Philip, rabid Discussionist, has noth- 
ing to say? I have been waiting for him to set off verbal 
fireworks.... The unionist is pleading again... 
formaunion... now... onthis very spot... and 
<fill Uncle Philip has nothing to say.... ‘‘Brother 

[ 98 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


workers, who will join me?’’ . . . Lewkowitz’s hands 
tremble as he prepares pencil and paper. . . . ‘‘Let me 
here put down the names of the organization and educa- 
tion committee to start the first garment-makers’ union 
in America de 

| eee 

‘¢Me.’? 

‘¢Put me down.’’ 

‘¢And me.’’ 

Nonresistant, Socialist, revolutionist and anarchist 
volunteer in a harmonious chorus. 

Now, I thought, Philip will give it to them .. . but, 
instead he bids them good night, quietly. ... In the 
street, under our window, we hear cheers and cries— 
‘‘Long live the union 7? Lewkowitz’s voice booms: 
‘¢Brother workers, be prepared for many defeats. But 
an inch at atime is enough. Patience is power fed 

Barney Finn stays on. . . . He must still expect to 
hear something interesting from Philip. Then I hear 
Bennie Finkelstein speak. He is always the silent one. 
I barely noticed his presence. He is, I suppose, some 
kind of an ‘‘ist,’? but has not as yet put a label on his 
views. 

Philip shuts the door, saying, ‘‘Did you hear them— 
‘Patience is power’—that’s the worm’s slogan.”’ 

Finkelstein says, ‘‘Mr. Finn, as we Jews have a way 
of saying, if you have patience enough you will also 
live to see the Messiah.’’ 

‘‘Barney,’’ says Philip, ‘‘you know Finkelstein, but 
let me introduce you again: this is Benjamin Finkel- 
stein, capitalist.’’ 

So—that’s the ‘‘ist’’ he is. A capitalist... . What 
in the name of ‘‘ists’’ is a capitalist! ‘ 


[99 } 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


*‘T should have said,’’ adds Philip, ‘‘that tomorrow 
I and Finkelstein make our beginning as capitalists.’’ 

‘¢And the worms,’’ asks Finn, ‘‘the worms with the 
patience, I suppose, they’ll fertilize the ground for 
you. But when your plants are up and growing, the 
worms, too, will want to eat of the plants.”’ 

‘‘And we’ll do what is always done with worms: 
we’ll crush them and throw them out of the garden,”’ 
answers Philip. 

Barney Finn laughs his deep-chested laugh. ‘‘ You’re 
a frank chap, you are.”’ 

‘And what is there to be ashamed of?’’ demands 
Philip. ‘‘I feel the earth under me as a hard fact. I 
see life as a grim truth of dog eat dog, man devour 
man. I don’t see life as a poet’s dream. I see that we 
live as long as we live, and there’s nothing else, noth- 
ing, after we’re done living: so living is the thing. 
I see that all we can get or have is what we can get 
from the other fellow. That’s how the whole scheme 
of life works. There’s nothing self-sustaining. Kvery- 
thing lives off something else. The stronger element 
absorbs the weaker. The weak lives only to nourish 
the strong. And that man is strong who believes he is 
strong: he is strong because he knows there’s a world 
of weaklings to serve him.’’ 

I sat up. Philip was so sure and startling in what 
he was saying that the air seemed to vibrate: or, was 
it that mother moaned?... 

Philip strides the room and the floor creaks under 
his nervous heel-taps; mother clasps and unclasps her 
hands with a cracking sound; Barney Finn crosses his 
legs and leans forward, astir with interest. And 
Finkelstein grins at Finn. 

[ 100 j 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘‘Barney Finn,’’ begins Philip, ‘‘we capitalists 
(uttered impressively), we who see life, the earth, its 
forces and elements, just for what they are, are going 
to organize and control the world. We will be kings of 
a new order: the empire of efficiency. We will be a 
driving force as merciless as nature for results. We 
will be the saviors of the dream-stupefied peoples. 
We will create industries, markets and wealth i. 

Finkelstein interrupts, quaintly, ‘‘In short, tomor- 
row morning at six, Philip Gold and I begin as bosses— 
manufacturers of clothing. How do you like our firm 
name—New World Clothing Company?”’ 

‘<Sounds smart,’’ Finn replies. 

‘‘Bosses?’’ queries mother. 

‘‘Yes, your brother from now on is a boss.”’ 

‘‘Yes, sister, I’m done being a slave to a machine; 
others will slave for me now.”’ 

‘““Bosses . . . machines . . . bosses 
mutters, ruefully shaking her head. 

‘“Meyer!’’ Philip calls, ‘‘are you asleep?’’ 

‘SNo.”? 

‘‘Tid you hear me, Meyer, I—your Uncle Philip is a 
boss.’ 

There is an irrepressible question in my mind and 
I blurt it out—‘‘A boss! on what?’’ 

‘¢ Always practical, always digging into the guts of 
things: that’s Meyer; that shows the shrewd lawyer 
making in him.’’ 

Finkelstein banters: ‘‘Looking for trade secrets. 
Maybe, you can’t tell, maybe he wants to be a com- 
petitor.’’ 

‘“Meyer,’’ says Philip, ‘‘on what? I’ll tell you on 
what. On the backs of workers.”’ 

[ 101 ] 


?? mother 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Mother’s hands snap and erack. She cries out: 
‘‘Only the workers, that’s all, only the workers. 
You’re a workman yourself, what do you want of the 
workers?’’ 

‘‘What did they want of me, what did they want of 
your husband? All they could get. That’s what I 
want. All I can get!”’ 

Mother’s answer is a mournful sigh. 

‘‘Oh, what’s the matter with you weaklings, you 
worms! That is the matter, dream-stupefied, you can’t 
see the way life is organized.”’ 

Finn coughs. I know he sympathizes with mother. 
After all he is only a dreamer, whose illusion is that 
he has a practical cure for all the ills of the world— 
Reform Laws. 

_ Philip throws back his head and exults: ‘‘I found 
out the secret of wealth. The road to wealth is paved 
with the backs of workers. I’ll climb over those backs, 
the backs of workers; I’ll climb higher and higher up 
the road to wealth till I reach the seats of the mighty— 
the German Jews. I take a leaf from the book of these 
damned nice, superior people, the German Jews: so 
good, so respectable, so proud: with their vaunted 
charities and rich temples which make you worms 
grovel before them. They are the ones who have been 
grinding you. But you don’t want a change of mas- 
ters. Your present masters are so swell, you’re proud 
of them. ... To me you say, you’re a workman your- 
self, and what you mean is, worm,—squirm in the dust 
of your betters. But Iam nota worm. Iamas smart 
as the German Jews any time, and I found out the 
secret of their success. Simple. The quick turnover 
profits from cheap immigrant labor. Their pious dol- 
[ 102 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


lars, their charitable, respectable dollars are sweated 
from your carcasses. But I’ll go them one better. I'll 
beat them at their own game. I’m not as elegant as 
they are. I’m not veiling myself with hypocrisy. I’m 
going to make money direct from the cheapest green- 
horn labor I can find. The German Jews are too finicky 
to have anything to do with cheap labor—direct. What 
they don’t see, they don’t know of, so they say smugly, 
they have nothing to do with sweat labor. They farm 
out their work to contractors, and the contractors to 
sub-contractors. And the German Jew is a good busi- 
ness man. A good business man makes the most of 
competition. So he beats down, screws down the com- 
peting contractors. Oh, no, the German Jew garment 
magnates do not employ sweat labor. No, the con- 
tractors do. ... That’s how I'll beat them. I’ll beat 
them because I am unashamed, unafraid to face facts. 
T’ll have no middleman squeezer. I’ll do my own driv- 
ing, squeezing and sweating. I'll corral the poorest 
greenhorns as they come through Castle Garden. I’ll 
work them, feed them and lodge them in my shop. .. . 
And they'll be grateful. . . . And I’ll work the women 
and children in the tenements. They’ll come to my 
shop and be glad to get work to do at home. They’ll 
stitch and baste in their homes, and save me shop 
space and shop rent, and they’ll work for next to noth-— 
ing, glad to earn a little extra money at home, and, 
even so, they’ll thank me.’’ __ 

Mother, as always, awed by her strong-minded 
brother, pleads humbly, ‘‘Philip, you’re a sweatshop 
workman yourself. You see what it does. You saw 
my husband sweated drop by drop into his grave——”’ 

[ 103 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘And what would you have me do, eh?’ he cuts in, 
savagely, sneeringly. 

‘‘Start a union shop,’’ she says hopelessly. 

Philip laughs uproariously, and mother shrinks from 
him. 

‘‘It’s a good thing,’’ he says, ‘‘this is a free country 
and I can exploit whom I like.”’ 

Finn starts to go, his head lowered, but when he gets 
to the doorway, looks up and states what he has been 
thinking. ‘‘It’s usual to wish a fellow good luck when 
he starts a new venture. But I can’t—for the life of 
me—wish luck to a sweater and exploiter.’’? His mouth 
wrinkles into a smile, but his eyes are sad. 

Philip sniffs, saying, ‘‘Barney Finn, wake up: you 
are dream-stupefied.”’ 

Finkelstein stays on, going over a multitude of de- 
tails with Philip, and I can’t sleep for the crisp click- 
clack of their talk. 

Finally Finkelstein leaves. Mother climbs a chair, 
winds the wall clock, turns down the lamp and starts 
for the bedroom. Philip stops her. . . . ‘‘I’ll tell you, 
Neshke, it’s a good thing I’ve got the bringing up of 
your boy, or you’d make a worm of him like his 
father.’’ . . . Mother bends her head, helpless against 
his inflexible will. . . . ‘‘You made a weakling of your 
husband—with your damned aching after respectable- 
ness. Your father set you a better example... .”? 
Mother creeps off to bed. Philip blows out the light, 
throws himself upon the couch and calls out, ‘‘ Meyer, 
respectableness is a lot of rot. . . . Say, did your 
mother ever tell you your grandfather was a horse 
thief? Yes, sir, grandfather—my father—may his soul 
rest in peace—was a clever horse thief.’? . . . The 

[ 104 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


clock ticks, gloomily, and I guess the muffled sound I 
hear is mother’s moaning.... ‘‘Meyer... in our 
town was a little boy. He was nobody’s child—a door- 
step bastard. He grew up and was smart, smart as a 
bastard, just as the saying goes,—smart as a bas- 
tard. ... He bought stolen horses from grandfather, 
cornered the local farm products and in time was get- 
ting rich. People became jealous and taunted him, 
saying, ‘You’re nobody. You have no ancestors.’ 
He said, ‘That’s all right, I don’t need ancestors. I 
am going to be an ancestor myself.’ . . . He’s in 
America now .. . married into a rich, snobbish Ger- 
man Jewish family ... he’s rich and respected, and 
he’ll be quite an ancestor for his children to look 
Peace 400, 7? 

Philip yawned and turned over with a great crunch- 
ing of straw and springs. 

‘“Meyer, we’ve got nothing to look back to. It’s up 
to us to be ancestors.’’ 


[105 J 


FOURTH PERIOD 


I have unveiled my interior. 
JEAN JacguEes RovussEav. 


. 
ed wat Vip 
si 
eves 


3 iy mi Hh rt i 
fn i x 


a 


FOURTH PERIOD 
| I 


I wake, fiat on my back, open-eyed, harkening to the 
spirited chirruping of sparrows. ... After all—even 
here—even I feel—it is Spring . . . Spring—it means 
nothing to me, save the new Esther. ... Yes: Esther’s 
beauty was born with Spring; or, did Spring open 
my eyes to lovely Esther? ... Esther. ... The birds 
sing of Esther. ... Last night Esther stood on the 
stoop. ... A soft night ... the air quick with whis- 


pers, perfumes and the stir of wings. . . . Davie put 
in words what we dimly wondered at. ... Anda 
warm-colored moon came out. . . . Avrum said, ‘‘See, 


the Schina shines about your head, HMsther.’’ .. . 
Harry Wotin sits on the bottom step, his hands clasp- 
ing his head. Is he dreaming of his fat Hannah Wein- 
grad, and her fatter dowry? ... No: maybe he, too, 
has found the Spring with her exquisite Esther. ... 
Davie murmurs Walt Whitman’s ‘‘When Lilacs Last 
in the Door-Yard Bloom’d.’’ . .. Davie and Avrum 
enshrine Hsther. ... but not I... . Last night I saw 
Iisther the Goddess steal down from her pedestal and 
become flesh of the earth. She stretched out her arms 
to the moon. And Bsther stood revealed to me— 
Woman for Man. .. . Esther asks Davie to recite his 
new poem and Davie with his head thrown back, his 


face aglow in the moonlight, speaks. ... I sit at 
Esther’s feet and breathe the fresh warmth of her 
body. I feel her body aquiver with new life. ... And 


[ 109 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


she listens with closed eyes . . . opens them once to 
look long and deep into my intent, burning eyes... 
and her hand leaps to her breast. .. . And I think— 
Esther, I am nearer to you than this poet and this 
dreamer. .. . I know you are a woman and you know 
I know. ... Avrum has said that the new poetry— 
Davie’s kind—has only one measure,—the measure of 
emotion. So I listen to Davie’s poem: 


Silence. 
Not of the cloister cell, 
Sunless place of souls enslaved to fixed fear; 


Nor of the tomb, stark symbol of formal sorrow, 
Decadent with the dust of tears, 
Foul-sweet with the sighs of CAD flowers ; 


Nor of the ‘dungeon, 

Charged with clamorous quiet, 

Where swarm the vermin of melancholia; 
And time’s a conscious treadmill ; 


No. 

I mean 

Silence 

Silence— 

Amidst the world’s moil 

The struggle, the clash, the roar, the rush, the 
lust of money and flesh, 

The silence 

That suspends you in timeless space: 

When first 

Truth flames across your heaven, 

When first 

Beauty is revealed, 

When first 

Love lives. 


104 le) ‘e) 


[110] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


A sentient hush... . Esther gives Davie a look 
that stirs him. ... Avrum grasps his hand in 
silence. .. . Harry Wotin gets up and looks quizzically 
at Davie. ... ‘‘A poet,’’ says he, ‘‘is a bright-colored 
weed in a potato patch.’?... Avrum retorts, ‘‘As 
blind as a physician. Medicine is a backward science. 
It denies the value of imagination. So, it gets nowhere, 
stands still.’’... Harry says, ‘‘No room for dab- 
blers and dreamers in medicine.’’?’... And Avrum 
answers, ‘‘Oh, Harry, I was hoping you would be 
different.’’ ... Harry, looking at Esther, says, ‘‘Up 
in college they knocked the dreams out of me. They 
have made me clear-eyed. Look at Davie. He takes 
up room and air and nourishment and gives nothing in 
return but an empty, flashing picture. Let him do 
something.’?... Esther speaks softly, ‘‘Harry, you 
are hard. Because you’ve been hard at it. Working 
hard to get money for your tuition and at the same 
time, studying hard. You are out of sympathy with 
anything else. Nothing seems worth while except 
medicine. But I tell you, Harry, poets are not weeds, 
useless parasites. They are very important to us. 
They are our eyes and ears to beauty.’’... Hymie 
Rubin comes looking for Harry, who is preparing him 
for the entrance exams to his medical school. . . . 
Harry looks about him and waves a contemptuous hand 
tothe moon. He asks, ‘‘Why does the poet rejoice with 
the coming of Spring? Is Summer far away? The 
Summer here in the Ghetto, in the slum, in the dirty, 
erowded city. What is there to rejoice over! Where 
is his imagination, his eye for beauty? Does he see the 
beautiful babies? What of the Summer that brings hell 
to our babies? Summer complaint—that is Spring’s 

[111] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


beautiful promise to our babies.. With the heat they'll 
die like flies. I know it is not beautiful to look 
ahead and see babies vomit and mess, turn blue 
with convulsions, become skinny and spavined, yel- 
low and greenish, writhe and moan in distress, and 
fade and pass away under the eyes of agonized 
mothers.’’... Esther touches his arm and tells 
him, ‘‘It is beautiful and imaginative to look ahead 
and try to save them—’’... Avrum says, ‘‘So you 
doctors think it is only a medical matter when the 
babies die like flies. I told you you have no imagina- 
tion. ... Would the babies get sick and suffer and 
die if they were not babies of work people living under 
the conditions of starvation wages? Doctors, infallible 
scientists that you are, tell me, do dark, hot, filthy 
tenements make nice Summer habitations for babies? 
Is cheap can milk and rotting foods—the leftovers of 
farm and dairy and market which the poor can afford— 
a healthful diet? Can the babies thrive when their 
mothers are underfed, run-down, overworked, and 
haven’t even time for the babies? Oh, doctors dears, 
improve the wage and thereby improve the standard 
of living, and, presto, the medical miracle will happen, 


an improved standard of health.”?... Talk. Talk. 
Talk. And all I can do is look at Esther and desire 
her. ... The evening passed in more talk, with 


Esther listening pensively, never looking at me, though 
she knows, I am sure, that I can’t take my eyes off 
her. ... And later I went to the roof where Gretel 
waited. She did not complain of the long wait. Her 
arms were ready for me and I found solace in the fiery 
peace of her embrace. ... Yet with the kisses of 
Gretel still hot on my lips, I stole through the alley- 
[112 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


way to the backyard of Esther’s house, gripped my 
fingers on the sill of her window, drew myself up, 
bracing my knees against the bricks, and looked 
through the half closed shutters of Esther’s little 
room. The moon had gone down behind the houses. 
It was dark. I could see nothing save an outline that 
suggested a bed....I hesitated ... heard a quiet 
breathing. .. . I dropped to the ground and went to 
my bed aflame with desire ... slept feverishly .., 
and awoke to the Spring call of the sparrows. 


[113 J 


IT 


It is all settled. Harry is going to be a babies’ 
doctor, and Hymie a women’s doctor—confinement 
cases. ‘They will have one office, a practical arrange- 
ment for the care of mother and child. Hymie is all 
worked up over the idea; he has imbibed Harry’s 
enthusiasm. ... He is telling us about it but breaks 
off in dismay—‘‘ Where the hell am I going to get 
tuition, books and everything?”’ . . . Harry has an- 
other year to go. The years of work and study have 
told on him frightfully. He looks like a living skeleton. 
Somebody once called him all neck. He has been work- 
ing on knee pants every night till one in the morning 
besides attending medical college. Harry says nothing, 
he knows it is hell getting the money. . . . Sam Rakow- 
sky says, ‘‘Don’t worry, Hymie, I got an idea how to 
get a lot of jack this summer.’’ . . . Hymie does not 
look pleased and makes no response. Sam’s ways and 
ideas are growing more and more distasteful to him. 
Lately, Hymie has been coming under the influence of 
the idealistic gang, and has been bitten by the eru- 
sader’s bug for education and amelioration of the 
suffering masses.... Simon Adler threw away his 
cigarette.... ‘‘Get a good graft,’’ advises Simon, 
who is working his way through Columbia Law School. 
Simon has a cute little graft—stealing professors’ and 
students’ overcoats with the help of Boolkie’s experts. 
Simon doesn’t steal, he only spots the lay of the 
plunder. . . . Now Sam loves Hymie and considers 
his sensibilities. He says, ‘‘I got something good. On 

[ 114} 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the level stuff. And we'll clean up. Got to work it 
14 A aa 

Sam has moved up from the messenger boy class 
nearer to the height of his ambition. He is an usher 
and fellow of all jobs in Tony Pastor’s Variety Theatre 
on Fourteenth Street. He is smitten more than ever 
with the song and dance craze. Sam says, ‘‘I got a 
new step. Regular crackerjack. It’s gonna knock ’em 
dead. .. . I'll show it to you, but I’m waiting for a 
gzuy—gotta show it to him—Al Wolff, one wise gazabo. 
You musta seen him. He’s the prize candy box bally- 
hoo in Miner’s teayter.’’ Every attendant of Miner’s 
Burlesque Theatre knows the voluble between-the-acts 
speechmaker who convinces you that every ten-cent 
box of candy contains a val-oo-able prize soot-able for 
ladies and gents. Generally the gents found a minia- 
ture chemise or a tiny pair of unmentionables, and 
ladies often were lucky enough to find a small piece 
of shaving soap. 

Al Wolff shows up. He is fat-faced and big-bellied. 
A stogie is stuck in a corner of his mouth and the 
belching weed is in dangerous proximity to his wide- 
brimmed western fedora, a head piece favored by show 
people. He was dressed in what Sam called hot-dog 
clothes. . . . Sam presents us and Al lets us touch 
his fat hand as he unctuously confides he is pleased 
to meetcha. ... Al says to Sam, ‘‘Do your stuff, 
kid.’’? . . . Sam fishes a harmonica from a pocket and 
hands it to Al. . . . ‘‘Now, Al, get this idea. I’m 
gonna come out made up asa Jew—’’... ‘You don’t 
need no make-up ,’? Simon’s voice from the side- 
line... . ‘‘No wise cracks,’’ decrees Al with balloon- 
like omniscience. .. Sam continues: ‘‘Whiskers, a 

bit 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


derby hat squeezed over my ears, a frock coat YS ane 
Al interrupts, offendedly, ‘‘Hey, you said you was 
gonna show me new stuff——’’... ‘‘Hold your 


horses,’’ admonishes Sam; ‘‘then I pulls I few wheezes 
about the Irish and the Jews, you know, a couple of 
good old Joe Millers for feelers out. Then I wants the 
music to begin. Now get this: Al, this is the hard part 
for you,—the music—’’... Al says, ‘‘I never saw 
the tune that I couldn’t beat—”’ ... ‘‘Well, see what 
you can do with this—first an Irish reel, very zippy, 
see, and when I am good and warmed up in the middle 
of the Irish jig, giving the regular Irish steps, I wants 
the music to slip into a Jewish wedding kazezateka 
(Russian-Jewish lively dance) with a barrel of snap, 
and that’s when I’m gonna show them a combination 
step that’s gonna knock them for a gool. . . . Get this 
right, Al, I’m gonna give you the two airs and I’m 
gonna show you how to join them up. But the hard 
part is the windup—when you gotta get a medley of 
the Irish reel and the Russian kazzatzka.’’ ... Sam 
hums, beats his hands and feet in time and Al follows, 
lamely, with the harmonica, but they keep it up, 
patiently, for over an hour until the desired Irish- 
Russian-Jewish potpourri is accomplished. The 
tremolo and whining strains of the harmonica have 
attracted a mixed audience. Mothers with babies in 
carriages, a mob of kids pushing and shoving, Boolkie 
and a bunch of Ludlow Streeters, Esther, Lillie and 
Hannah on the stoop, Gretel looks out of the window, 
a few pushcart peddlers have moved their vehicles 
nearer the excitement and the Canal Street horse cars 
wait while the conductors investigate and report back 
to the drivers, and the passengers stick their heads 
f 116 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


out of the windows, asking one another what is the 
matter.... Samishappy ... anaudience!... Al 
looks around him in the masterful way of a leader 
accustomed to the gaze of mobs.... Sam signals, 
‘‘Let her go—gimme a few bars—to open up, and then 
start her again and go right through.’”’... Sam’s 
dance begins . . . and the audience is noisily appre- 
ciative . .. and then came the knock-them-dead cli- 
max... it almost made us dizzy. Sam’s feet don’t 
seem to touch the ground. The windup is acrobatic. 
He does marvelous bodily contortions on his heels with 
original, difficult variations of the kaezatzka whirligig, 
and suddenly he leaps into an Irish jig in time with the 
music and then as suddenly twists himself into wild 
Russian back-breaking steps that seem impossible 
to do. 

Al orders the mob dispersed. . . . ‘‘We gotta talk 
business,’’ he says. ... Sam selects Hymie, Davie, 
and myself to take part in the conference.... I lead 
them to Berel’s cellar. ... Al remarks, ‘‘Sam, you 
got the goods and all you need is a good manager to 
put you over,’’ and we all knew he meant himself. He 
already had the flare and bluster and cocksuredness 
of a burlesque show impressario. . . . Al shakes hands 
with Berel with the assuring ‘‘pleased to meetcha”’ as 
he manipulates a stogie from one end of his mouth to 
the other with his tongue, teeth and lips. ... Davie 
wonders what’s it all about. Sam has confided to me 
the great scheme so near his heart. Hymie, who can 
think only of his career, worries about the possibility 
of dirty work. He is becoming one of those persons 
who fuss dreadfully about keeping clean. ... Al asks 
Sam: ‘‘I suppose this is the balance of your quar- 

{117 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


tet.’?... ‘Yop,’ answers Sam, ‘‘good talent, every 
one.’?. .. Alis skeptical, ‘‘You can think so, but they 
gotta show me—I’m from Miner’s.”?... Sam points 
us out, “‘Now Davie, here, is my high tenor, got fine 
falsetto topnotchers; Hymie is comedy barry (bari- 


tone), Meyer is bass and I’m straight tenor.’? 0. ae 
calls on Hymie to oblige. Hymie is reluctant but yields 
to importunate Sam. ... Hymie’s was a nasal bari- 


tone. ... Al pronounced it good for comedy stuff, and 
on the spot bestowed upon him his stage sobriquet— 
Hi Rube. ‘‘You’ll come out wearing a sunbonnet with 
blue ribbons on it tied in big bow under your chin; 
and you’ll carry a carpet-bag. We gotta give you some 
lines about a poor country girlin a big city. And you'll 
sing a hot-stuff song—a parody on a pop-oolar song— 
of what happened to an innercent gal in a wicked 
town. ... lLet’s see you try to talk like a gurl ae 
Use your nose, kid; use your nose.”? . . . Hymie 
balks. . . . Sam pleads. ... Al Says indignantly, 
**Don’t do me no favors. You ain’t the only nose barry 
in Noo Yawk.’’ ... Sam says, ‘‘Hymie, this is gonna 
give us work for the whole summer. You'll get enough 
kale to see you through college.’? ... ‘*What do you 
say, Meyer?’’ Hymie appeals to me. I advise him to 
try it out. ‘‘If there’s money in it we’ll stick along, 
otherwise we’ll drop it. It’s might work: yw a 
tries us out individually and then as a quartet. He 
withholds his approval and Says we need a whole lot 
of polishing.... Davie submits, wonderingly, but 
when he learns that Al, our manager, is going to put 
us to work as singing waiters in a Chinatown dance 
hall, he flatly refuses... . Al gets sore. ‘‘Say,’’ he 
demands in disgust, ‘‘you got a crust, bringing me a 
f 118 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


lot of sissies to do turns in a hell’s-bells spielers’ par- 
lor.’”?... Avrum arrives in time to convince Davie 
that work he must if he expects to continue college next 
term. ... Everyone willing, at last, Al first begins to 
tell us of the difficulties in our path. We thought the 
jobs were ours for the taking.... Al arranges to 
sneak us into Miner’s and for Sam to pass us into Tony 
Pastor’s so that we may profit from professional excel- 
lence. And until summer comes we must rehearse 
without letup. Then he will arrange for gratis try- 
outs in back rooms and rathskellers. When the right 
time comes he will spring the quartet upon Frenchie 
Lavelle, who runs the largest dance hall in Chinatown. 
‘You gotta be good to get past Frenchie,’’ warns 
Al. ... ‘‘Just about summer will be the right time: 

that - mien some of his regular singing waiters go down 
to Coney Island fer big money in Paddy Ryan’s joint. 
Maybe you'll get the jobs, and if you do, you’re good 
for big money.’”’? . .. Before he leaves he entitles our 
‘‘aooregation’’—a favorite theatrical description for 
a variety turn numbering more than two persons—the 
Fast Side Four—Entertainers to the Four Hundred. 
He has designated Hymie as Hi Rube and now names 
Sam—Sid Raleigh, the human slide trombone; calls 
Davie—Dan Slater, the angel-voiced tenor, and de- 
scribes me as Melville Hart, the only basso profundo 
in captivity. ... Al amused us with his descriptions 
and assured us, most convincingly, that under his guid- 
ance we would become world-famous performers. 
Only leave it to him. I am perfectly satisfied so long 
as Al finds me the money to pay for my first year in 
law school. 


[119] 


iit 


Maxie Freund comes awhispering in my ear. He has 
found a place, downtown, near the courthouse, where 
second-hand law books are displayed on stalls in front 
of a book store. He hints they are bargains, great 
finds, indispensable; grasp the opportunity. It is 
Maxie’s last thought, apparently, that the books be 
stolen. And he adds, significantly, Boolkie will be glad 
to get them for me. Boolkie assigns Little Joe and 
Big Joe, practicing and proficient shoplifters, to 
fetch me a few sample law books. Maxie seizes the 
volumes, runs through them with loving fingers 
and pronounces them highly satisfactory ... In a 
short time Maxie and I acquired a considerable law 
library. ... Maxie finds a law book fascinating read- 
ing and enjoys collecting and indexing what he terms 
cute little jokers in decisions. He likes cases of hair- 
splitting, and he can think and talk only in the pon- 
derous jargon of the law. He says he finds law a cinch 
after the heart-breaking intricacies of the Talmud. 
Maxie, except for cheder studies in Russ-Poland, has 
never been to school, but every evening, after he leaves 
work in the shirt factory, grinds away in preparation 
for the State Regents’ examination to earn enough 
counts to be permitted to take the law exams. When 
it is slack in the factory he sits through solid sessions 
of the Supreme Court, enjoying himself more than a 
boy at a circus. He is all alone in America, and has 
but one companion, a tomcat, upon whom he practices 
cross-examination. He tells me the more the cat snarls, 

[ 120 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


backs up, claws and spits, the calmer he grows. After 
a while his intense, though quiet, unswerving but 
smooth talk, and a soothing motion of his index finger, 
sort of mesmermize the cat... . He says he is going 
to be a new kind of a lawyer, a quiet-spoken one, and 
he has an idea that this quality together with a hypno- 
tizing intentness is going to make him the greatest 
cross-examiner that ever lived... . He suggests that 
we become partners. That we would make a great 
combination. I will get the cases, squeeze out every 
dollar in them, and he will prepare and try the 
cases. ... The plan seems a good one. 

Now and then I snare a sucker for Moe Levenson 
and in return for my occasional services he agrees to 
swear to my Clerkship, which will save me a year in 
law school. 

I see little of Philip. He says nothing to me, except 
for an occasional sharp warning,—‘‘Keep your nose 
to your studies.’’ .. . He has no time for words now. 
He is up at the break of day, and often does not return 
until midnight. Only a burning ambition could keep 
him going. His former friends, the Discussionists, 
have excommunicated him. His shop is reputed to be 
the worst example of a sweater. And more, he is con- 
demned for having started the system of farming out 
work to children and women to be done in their homes. | 

Barney Finn stalks the Ghetto streets like a melan- 
choly Hamlet. ... Ilookafter him. I have just heard 
the queer news that he is in the freshman class of the 
Columbia Law School, his height and age making him 
quite conspicuous among the youngsters.... But I 
look after Barney Finn curiously. He is in love with 
Esther. She told me Finn took up law so that he could 

Sia 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


write his own reform laws and fight the poor’s causes 
in the courts. 

I never get much of a chance to be alone with 
Hsther. She is busy taking a course in the Teachers’ 
Training School. In the evening her short stay on the 
stoop finds her surrounded by girl friends or attended 
by Davie and Avrum. Lately, Barney Finn has joined 
the group. I am sure they are all in love with her, and 
to me they are strange lovers. They don’t make love. 
Davie is inspired by her and his poems are indirect 
love tenders. Avrum seems to keep in the background, 
as though he wants to give Davie every opportunity. 
His act may be called the finest manifestation of un- 
selfish friendship. I felt that virility and positiveness 
were lacking in Avrum’s makeup. I often noticed that 
good-naturedness is another name for softness and 
weakness. ... And Barney Finn looks into Esther’s 
shadowing eyes and talks on hopefully of making a 
greater America out of the rough new materials from 
Kurope. ... Esther is their deity, before whose altar 
they offer their ideals for consecration. She exalts 
them into high resolve, but I try to reason with her not 
as a goddess but as a human being. I think idealism is 
the refuge of the incompetent. The real force of life 
is too much for them, and they dream of a softer 
existence. . 

But I never get a chance to be alone with Esther. 
I believe that given the time and place alone with a 
woman she cannot resistme.... One Saturday after- 
noon I saw Esther’s parents start strolling towards 
East Broadway, the Sabbath promenade boulevard of 
the Ghetto. I waited, and Esther did not follow. I 
knocked on her door. She opened it and I walked in, 

f 122 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


closing the door after me. She was too surprised and 
I acted too quickly for her to stop me. I asked for her 
father. She said he had just gone out. I stood looking 
at her. . . . Her beauty was too much for me. I fell to 
my knees. ... I was worshipful, too. I adored the 
woman. She drew back ... a pulse beat in her 
throat ... her hands fluttered to her hair. I hobbled 
on my knees closer to her and embraced her legs, press- 
ing my head against her knees. ... Her whisper is ter- 
rified—‘‘ Meyer—Meyer—what are you doing?”’... 
My pressure upon her legs was such that she was 
forced to kneel in front of me, and I grasped her wrists 
and talked close to her face. And Hsther’s kindness 
was almost her undoing . . . goodness . . . kind- 
ness ... that is, weakness. She talked gently to 
me... her silver-bell-like voice inciting memore ... 
I pressed her back on the floor, hanging over her head, 
speaking with all the passion raging in me. ... Then 
I heard voices in the hallway, steps . . . the cautious 
man of this real world spoke to me—warned me of 
danger.... Iletherup.... She looked at me won- 
deringly, even sympathetically, for she was Esther. 
it was her first experience with the violence of 
passion. ... 

And I go with my great hunger to Gretel... .. And 
I leave her ... hungrier for Esther. ... 


[123] 


IV 


Moods beset me like a swarm of fleas on a dog. ... 
I think Esther avoids me, loathes me... perhaps, 
fears me. She is a puritan, and I surprised the woman 
in her. Was that a responsive gleam of fire I saw in 
her suddenly opened eyes that sought mine and fled 
again behind fine screens of lashes? ... No, no. The 
puritan is supreme in her. She is not going to let her- 
self think she is a woman. She prefers to be the 
unfleshly ideal of the dream-stupefied blunderers. But 
the woman of the earth is there, and I worry that she 
favors Avrum, strong, handsome, eloquent and lov- 
able.... Now I think it is Davie that takes her 
womanly fancy, Davie with his curly blonde hair and 
hazy blue eyes, a child of a man to ensnare the mother- 
liness of a woman’s heart, and I know motherliness 
springs from the sex instinct.... Again I think it 
is Barney Finn that may win her. He has the quiet 
charm and repose of a Gentile, qualities that appeal to 
the fine and high-strung East Side girl who seeks 
escape from vulgarity and overemphasis of ego... . 
These are the most pertinacious fleas, the gadflies of 
jealousy, and they give me no peace. . . . And defeat— 
what a terrible itch it leaves. But I deny defeat. Deny 
it, but the itch does not let me sleep. .. . 

It is Sunday morning. The quartet is rehearsing in 
Berel’s cellar. I follow along, mechanically. I try to 
heed Al Wolff’s injunction to zip it up . . . but every- 
thing is Esther. She draws me from all things. My 
overmastering vanity fills me with hate, and I breathe 

[ 124 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘‘damn her.’’? . . . I remember a look in her face, a 
look of pity. Pity—wait—wait, just wait, I will not 
even show her pity. Pity is the greatest offense to 
pride. And I vow she will yet crawl before me, abject, 
begging for crumbs of my love... . Alis thundering, 
‘Bells, bells, bells! G’wan, try it again.”?... The 
effect Al wants is of dissimilar toned bells, mingling 
resonantly, receding, rising and swelling, and under 
the gyrations of his stogie-baton our voices begin to 
peal strangely symphonic. ... Berel smacks his lips 
and exclaims, ‘‘Such a year on me if it isn’t better than 
the Kishineff choir. Golden bells. Golden bells.’ ... 
Al’s father, a cantor of renown, taught him the choral 
art, but Al deserted the synagogue for the theatre and 
became the scandal and grief of his parents’ declining 
days. ... Over and over again we do the choruses, 
solos, gags, nifties, buck and wing duets, grand ensem- 
bles and specialties. ... Davie makes a suggestion. 
Al howls him down. He is witheringly scornful, 
‘“What’s that last remark? <A few classical ballads? 
So long, good-by, I kiss the whole shooting match 
good-by. Classical ballads, say, where do you get that 
stuff? Do you want to put a crimp in us? There’s 
only one thing goes in this game,—give the gang what 
it wants, and if you want to get by, you gotta be better 
than the next guy.’’ . . . Davie inquires, quietly, ‘‘Tell 
me, if you can, how do we know the people do not want 
good music and good poetry, if no one will bring good 
music and poetry before them.’’?... Al says, ‘All 
right, all right, call it a day. Remember, kiddo, I’m 
the manager, and:what I says, goes. What you want 
to go looking for trouble for? That’s what we man- 
agers are for—we knows what the public wants and we 
[ 125 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


gives it to them.’’... Sam consoles Davie that it 
would be best not to think of trying any highbrow stuff. 
He says, ‘‘They won’t get you. Them roughnecks 
would laugh you in the face and laugh you outta the 
show.’’... ‘‘Say,’’? demands Al, ‘‘this is a nice time 
to come sashaying into the party with any-meeny-my 
tripe. I got it all fixed for the East Side Four to play 
a date, Saturday night coming, in the Dutch Village 
Rathskeller. You’d make a bum outta us with your 
classical bushwah. Forget it, now, forget it. And you 
fellers don’t quit working out every chance you get. 
Saturday night is our tryout, and I’m fixing it to have 
Frenchie Lavelle come and give us the once over.’’ 

Sam is agog. The dream of his life begins to merge 
into realization. But his face turns gloomy. He whis- 
pers, ‘‘Say, Meyer, what are we gonna do? Al don’t 
know we ain’t got the price for makeups. What are 
we gonna do?’’... Before I can answer I give myself 
a number of mental shakeups, tossing about the tor- 
menting fleas, so that I may begin to grapple with 
Sam’s problem. And then I remembered a little plan 
- of my own that would need money. Al liked my idea; 
in fact, he averred with managerial aplomb, that he had 
counted on such a scheme himself. I meant to salt the 
rathskeller audience with a sprinkling of Ludlow 
Streeters to stimulate applause, and our claque would 
have to have money for drinks and coins to throw to 
the entertainers. 

Berel greets a newcomer. It is Lewkowitz, the tire- 
less and oft-defeated union organizer, come on an 
errand of mercy. He offers a pasteboard to Berel. 
‘‘And, what is it?’’ asks Berel. Lewkowitz tells him 
it is a raffle ticket for a gold watch for the benefit of a 

f 126 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


consumptive union member whom they want to send 
to Denver. ... <An excellent idea, I think, and I then 
and there conceive the plan of running a raffle for a 
non-existent gold watch. It is one thing to run a rafile, 
but another matter entirely to sell tickets and fail to 
present the prize to the lucky number holder. 

So I wander about, with Sam at my heels, asking his 
unhappy question, ‘‘What are we gonna do?”? ... 
Davie has hold of my arm and is dilating upon art for 
the masses. The people will not reject the beautiful, 
he argues. Avrum comes and relieves me of Davie. 
And then I come upon Boolkie eating a sandwich. In 
the shelter of an upturned pushcart a passionate crap 
game isin progress. Dago Jack is rolling the dice and 
he prays, ‘‘Come, baby, come, be nice to papa.’’ Little 
Joe says, ‘‘Them dice knows who’s fadin’ you and 
they ’ll never, never come to you.’’ The dice roll to a 
great snapping of fingers, and a disgusted howl advises 
me that Dago Jack failed to make his point. . . . Bool- 
Ine gets my wink signal and saunters off with me. 
“Now, Boolkie,’’ I begin, ‘‘here is a nice, easy way to 
get a little change for both of us and give the boys a 
big time Saturday night in the Dutch Village Raths- 
keller. We are going to run a raffle, see. We print 
tickets: Raffle for a sick friend. A gold watch to the 
lucky number. Twenty-five cents a chance. Get the 
gang to hold up the storekeepers, landlords, stand- 
holders and peddlers to buy raffle tickets. They know 
it’s wise to keep on the right side of you. They got to 
come across with protection money once in a while. 
Next time we’ll run some kind of a racket, a dance or 
something. Get them in the habit of coming across 
with protection money.’’ Boolkie likes the idea well 

[ 127 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


enough to make the rounds himself. On the following 
day I brought him the printed tickets, and in a few 
hours he disposed of one hundred at twenty-five cents 
each. We made a fifty-fifty split, Boolkie agreeing to 
stand treat to favored members of the gang on Satur- 
day night in the Rathskeller. ... 

And Sam and I spent a happy evening bargaining 
with the Houston Street costume storekeepers for our 
various makeups. Little Joe accompanied us and stole 
a fine beard for Sam and a splendid set of mustaches 
and goatees for me. Little Joe’s system of stealing 
was side-splitting to us. He simply took things right 
under your eyes. It was so preposterous that no one 
ever watched or suspected him. He is never from 
under your eyes, true enough, but the hand, gentlemen, 
as the sideshow ballyhoo will tell you, is quicker than 
the eye. Little Joe’s gifts were not for long wasted on 
petty shoplifting. He got a fat job in ‘‘Honest John’s”’ 
gambling house as a dealer. Little Joe’s lightning 
manipulations helped to maintain ‘‘Honest John’? 
Brook’s high reputation for square dealing. 

New York town’s vice is always self-conscious, like 
the bad manners of a growing boy. Its symbol and 
guiding beacon is the red light, which shines, resplend- 
ently, tonight, Saturday, the big pay night, and flush 
time of Manhattan’s pleasure places. There is no pre- 
tense or hypocritical disguise, no game of hide and seek 
of outward order and decency. The lid is off. The 
town is wide open. The red lamp glowers in the door- 
way and says, I am sin, and the people drink and sing 
and love, boastfully, as though to say, See—I sin. 

Are you pleasure bent? Look for the color of red. 
If you are color blind, ask a cabby or a policeman. If 

[ 128 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


you are not overfinicky, ask a child. Everybody 
knows. ... The Tenderloin is a bright lobster pink. 
Allen Street has the hue and smell of a red herring. 
Elizabeth Street reeks, blood-red, tart and fulsome like 
overdoses of cheap Chianti. And the Five Points’ 
erimson lamp blinks sickeningly under its mottlings 
of mud. 

The Dutch Village is a dazzling ruby on the Tender- 
loin’s gory breast. It is an uptown, expensive place, 
divided in two parts. Upstairs there is a meretricious 
atmosphere of refinement. It goes in for the good taste 
trimmings of the day. Pink lights, palms, carpeted 
aisles, tablecloths, full dressed waiters and a string 
orchestra. Strikingly dressed women, chosen for their 
statuesqueness, today’s standard of pulchritude, loll 
past your table, tinkling their satin petticoats and dif- 
fusing heavy perfumes, and ask, quietly and modestly, 
if you desire their company. . . . Meanwhile there is a 
strumming, politely restrained, by the string orchestra 
stuck up on a shelf-like balcony. And then a wind- 
broken tenor with an ill-fitting wig and waxed mus- 
taches, and an old soprano desperately painted against 
her manifest years and with a remarkably buttressed 
figure, together, or individually, cook up an operatic 
farrago of overworked and mangled arias made 
already unbearably familiar by hurdy-gurdies. . . . 
But downstairs in the Rathskeller it is different. Here 
there are no carpets or tablecloths. It has a rough 
and ready, good-fellow, you’re-welcome-any-way-you- 
come air. Instead of tenors, sopranos, and a dulcet 
string orchestra, we have roof-reverberating coon 
shonters and a whiz-bang ragtime band, made up of a 
piano, fiddle and drum, mostly drum. The girls who 

[ 129 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


seek your company are not so toney, and their style 
not so spiffy, but their manner is cordial and naturally 
New-Yorkese. They sit down at your table, give or 
receive a quip, and if not wanted, move along to the 
next one. Here you have an intimate good time, and 
you may stay as long as your money lasts. The Dutch 
Village never closes. 

Al times our début for the midnight hour. He wants 
a well-filled place and an audience that has become 
mellowly convivial. . . . He points out Frenchie 
Lavelle, sitting in a corner, and we look at the huge 
man with a saturnine face, whose eyes seem scratched 
out by crows’ feet. ... ‘‘Don’t play to him,’’ Al ad- 
vises; ‘‘it won’t do no good. Frenchie looks for one 
thing—the way you hit the mob. Now g’wan and hit 
’em for a bull’s-eye.’’ 

The drummer beats a prolonged roll call. Al mounts 
the performers’ platform. He is recognized. Every 
patron of Miner’s knows him.... ‘‘What are you 
giving away tonight?’’?... ‘‘A prize in every pack- 
age.’’ . . . ‘‘Only a dime, the tenth part of a 
dollar.’’... <Al’s fat face creases in happy smiles 
at the good-natured sallies. . . . ‘‘Do your stuff, 
kid.’’ .. . Al motions the drummer and he beats again 
a roll call, and Al begins, ‘‘Ladies an’ gents——’”? A 
ceat-call. An exaggerated sneeze. A mock baby-crying. 
Al puts up a tolerant hand against the familiar friendly 
buffoonery. . . . Cries of ‘‘give him a chance’’ spurt 
out here and there, mostly from planted Ludlow 
Streeters. ‘‘He’s good.’’?... Al launches into his 
speech, his voice carrying above an occasional inter- 
ruption. 

‘‘Ladies an’ gents, I’m gonna take a few minutes of 

[130 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


your time.’’... ‘‘It’s all right, long as you don’t 
take our watches.’’?... ‘‘He can do that, too.” ... 
‘‘Take a year off.’’? ... ‘‘I hope the judge gives him 
ten years.’’... ‘‘On bee-have of the manigment, I 
takes pleasure in arnouncing a brand new fee-ture for 
tonight’s entertainment, an added attrackshun, which 
they has got at great expense, and will be shown to the 
public for the first time anywhere. I takes pleasure 
im arnouncing the East Side Four, kwartet, buck an’ 
wing and comedy artists, introducing numberous 
nowelties, all bein’ under the pursonel direckshun of 
A. Wolff, Esquire. Ladies an’ gents, I now calls upon 
the Hast Side Four, entertainers to the Four Hundred, 
to show you their stuff.’’.... We filed to the plat- 
form, and Al identified us, individually, by our stage 
names. ... Applause broke out, no doubt started by 
our claque, and then it became general. Everybody 
was in good spirits. 

Al took the piano and played the introductory bars 
of Sam’s medley song and dance. To the onlookers’ 
delight, Sam put on his makeup right out front. It was 
something new. Ashe put on his beard and frock coat, 
and squeezed down the squat derby over his ears, he 
kept up a rapid fire of familiar Irish-Jewish wheezes, 
connected up in a story, to which Al tinkled an accom- 
paniment. Then Sam began the dance, saying, ‘‘Now 
watch the national dance of New York. Irish-Jew- 
ish.’? . . . Loud applause. ... The difficult dance, 
with its weird intermixture of Irish reel and Yiddish 
kazzatzka, brought down the house, and there were 
long calls of ‘‘do it again, kid.’”?... The comment 
ran, generally, ‘‘It’s hot stuff.’’ To give Sam a chance 
to catch his breath, the quartet sang the chorus of 

[ 131 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘‘Paddy Reilly Does the Jewish Wedding Dance,”’ 
music by Sam Rakowsky, words by Al Wolff... . Big 
applause. Our quartet was really well trained and 
capably blended, and the effect of bells impressed our 
hearers, for New York was at this time quartet 
crazy. ... The drummer and fiddler caught the easy 
tune, really nothing more than the familiar Irish reel 
melody and Jewish wedding music, rearranged and 
joined. Sam did his dance again, and by the time he 
started the back-breaking heel dance the audience broke 
out in surprised enthusiastic applause. Then Al played 
an introduction that called for Davie’s appearance. 
He had no makeup on, but his wan beauty and ethereal 
expression brought cries of ‘‘Oh sister, does mamma 
know you’re out tonight?’’ .. . ‘‘Hoo, La, La.’’?... 
‘‘Sweet baby.’’ ‘‘Cut the comedy.’’?... ‘‘Give him 
achanst.’’... Davie began to sing. His pure-toned, 
deep and richly sweet voice hushed the eruwd. He sang 
a sentimental ballad, a mother song, full of flourishes 
that music hall gods doted on, into which he put tender- 
ness and appeal, and when his voice broke in sobs dur- 
ing the pathetic finale—one of Al’s touches—the house 
went wild. The quartet took up the chorus, trying sev- 
eral of Al’s shadings, and the resultant table rappings 
and feet poundings attested to our success.... Hi 
Rube almost gave the bunch hysterics when he 
appeared in a sunbonnet and a wrapper that showed 
his pants legs. He carried a carpet bag. His mincing 
steps and squeaky voice were well done. He sang an 
original bit of thing that couldn’t bear repeating even 
in a frank book. I was the author of the words, which 
I fitted to a popular tune of the day. The title of the 
song was, ‘‘Something Tells Me If It Happened Once 
[132] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


It Will Happen Again.’’ And Hymie made his narra- 
tion so woeful that he achieved high comedy results. 
And under Al’s tutelage, he got down among the audi- 
ence, and went from table to table, and spoke the lines 
to music, ‘‘Won’t you tell me, please, I’m only a coun- 
try gal in a big city, if it happened once, will it happen 
again?’’ ... Bringing the audience into the show was 
an example of Al’s craftsmanship. It was the begin- 
ning of that kind of entertainment in New York. I had 
no specialty number. My voice was used only for bass 
effects in the quartet. They made quite a fuss over us. 
Coins dropped at our feet, especially during Davie’s 
second song, ‘‘ Mother’s Broken Heart.’’ . . . We were 
treated to drinks, and at last Frenchie gave the good 
word to Al. And we jumped for joy. We were engaged 
as regular singing waiters beginning Monday night. 
While the regular coon-shouters did their turns wa 
mingled with the audience and worked for the house. 
Working for the house means ordering expensive 
drinks whenever we were treated. Sam and Hymie 
were quite drunk and by the time dawn came they had 
to be put behind the piano to sleep it off. Al stuck to 
beer and was always himself. We now knew the secret 
of his being able to get us a date to play the Dutch 
Village Rathskeller. Mazie Lou, premier coon-shouter, 
was stuck on him. And in this little world of abandon 
when a woman loves you she shows it in an exaggerated 
way. We think it is exaggerated. It is rather the 
metier of their morals. Mazie Lou, a little drunk now, 
kept asking everyone, looking ecstatically at Beefy Al, 
moist and bedewed with sweat, ‘‘Ain’t he grand! Ain’t 
he grand! Ain’t he got the grandest act you ever 
seen!’’ ... There was a girl wandering about the 
[133 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


place and she reminded me of Esther. It was more 
striking when I saw that she had taken a decided fancy 
to Davie. This girl was called Billie. She had turned 
down a number of invitations for the night, and just 
hovered around Davie. Her resemblance to Esther 
inflamed my jealousy against Davie. But Davie was 
dazed in these surroundings, and a bottle of wine he 
had drunk made him star-eyed and moodily uplifted. 
He barely noticed Billie. She was a great favorite and 
had an Irish temper. She got it into her head that 
Davie was studiously ignoring and insulting her. Ina 
rage she slapped his face. <A glass rolled off the table 
and splintered on the floor. The piano stopped. <A’ 
drunken hush fell over the place. It was the drifting 
dawn time, when even noisy revellers begin to whisper. 
Davie rose and held out his hand, and asked pleadingly, 
‘*What have I done ?”? . .. Billie flung herself to 
her knees. ‘‘I didn’t mean it. . . . I couldn’t help 
it. . . . I’ve gone crazy listening to your golden 
voice.”? .. . Davie helped her up, placed her in a chair 
and sat down beside her. . . . The comment ran that 
Billie had gone nuts again. There was a little gossip 
that she came of good people . . . that some day she 
would get hers . . . too much temper and independ- 
ence for a street walker... and, besides, she did not 
have the protection of a pimp... and she wasn’t a 
regular feller. ... The other girls made nasty re- 
marks about her. They were jealous of her distinctive 
good looks and refined bearing .. . most of all they 
resented that the better class of frequenters, the good 
spenders, all tried to pick up Billie. . . . Billie was the 
first choice. . . . Boolkie was ponderously intoxicated. 
He had tried to make Billie, and I guess he was pretty 
[ 134 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


sore at her. He waddled over to her and asked her what 
she meant by hauling off and slapping a friend of his. 
He said he had a good mind to squash in her face for 
her. Billie opened her handbag and took out a small- 
barreled revolver, and said, ‘‘Go ahead and try it, you 
big bully.’? ... Davie was distressed. He begged for 
peace, said it was nothing, and Boolkie retired in face 
of the revolver, saying, to save his face, ‘‘It’s all right, 
’*g long as my friend says so.’’ . . . I watched to see 
what would happen to the pure idealist in the hands 
of an infatuated harlot. Davie was drinking another 
bottle of wine. Billie was sipping iced absinthe. She 
took another, while Davie mooned over his second 
glass. And Billie now gulped down an absinthe plain. 
The ivory pallor of her face deepened. Her slender, 
long-fingered hands moved restlessly, erratically across 
the table. She asked Davie to sing. The wine had gone 
to his head. He sang ‘‘Drink to Me Only With Thine 
Eyes,’’ and the audience wanted to know what the hell 
he was pulling off, though they were charmed by the 
feeling and beauty of Lis voice. Billie seemed lost ina 
rapturous trance, and her slate-gray eyes filled with 
tears. ... And Davie sang again, wonder of wonders, 
a Schubert love song, which made the audience go wild 
with enthusiasm. ... Al said that the audience was 
drunk enough to like anything once they liked you 
when they were sober. . . . And Billie drank ab- 
sinthe. ... The other girls said, ‘‘Look out for her 
when she hits that stuff hard. She goes nuts.’’?... 
I took my whiskey straight, like grandfather-horse- 
thief. I found it made me morose and thoughtful. I 
took the liquor thinking that maybe it would cheer me 
up, but instead thoughts of Esther kept shooting 
[ 135 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


through my brain like red-hot needles. And there was 
Billie to remind me of her. . . . I took aseat at Davie’s 
table. He was either frightfully innocent or deliciously 
drunk. He was reciting Walt Whitman to Billie, who 
listened with an intense face, showing intense absorp- 
tion or intense bewilderment. ... And Davie was 
explaining Walt Whitman to her. He told her Whit- 
man loved all people, and because he loved them he 
could understand them and reach their soul-beings. 
She asked, ‘‘And do you think he could understand 
me—me—and love me and see the soul of me——”’ . . 
And then Davie, whom I thought but a baby of the 
world, spoke to her Whitman’s lines addressed to a 
street walker for an appointment. . . . And Billie 
drank her absinthe, and I swallowed the raw booze, 
while Davie spoke of the poet he was going to be... . 
‘‘T have been precocious, but I shall lose all that as I get 
to know and love people. I shall get the swing and 
measure of life. I will move like the swell of the sea, 
I will fiy on the wings of emotion, I will pant with the 
consumptive, swelter and pine with the prisoner in his 
cell, I will agonize on the wheel of industry, I will reel 
with the drunken man, drunk with his despair or his 
joy, I will thrill with the mother who suckles her babe 
and the father who looks on, I will walk the streets with 
the homeless, the pariahs and wantons and love them 
and be with them, I will sing their song, their lilt, their 
pean, their dirge; my beat will be the beat of their 
hearts, the beat of their tired and halt steps, the pulse 
of their wrongs and angers and passions i 

Now is the sodden hour. The waiters are busy with 
their own breakfasts. Henry Meckelheimer, the pro- 
prietor, comes to look over the cash receipts. It is 

[ 136 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWI, 


Morning. The air clears. A young girl’s voice calls 
out—‘‘Papa.’’... Meckelheimer answers, ‘‘Here I 
am, downstairs.’?... A flaxen-haired girl appears, 
fresh-eyed, and brisk. It is Henrietta Meckelheimer. 
I look at her, wondering how a morning glory grows 
in a garbage can. The Meckelheimers have an apart- 
ment over the Dutch Village. . . . But I saw Henrietta 
Meckelheimer again—twenty years later. She was 
brought before me, and I sat in judgment upon her. 
She was convicted of robbing a man in a panel game. 
She was friendless, without home or money, and a hope- 
less morphine addict. I sent her to State’s Prison. .. . 
They started to mop the floors and we roused up Hymie 
and Sam. We squeezed them into a hansom cab, and 
followed in a barouche. Billie watched us leave, and 
when the barouche started off she called out, ‘‘So long, 
boys, I’ll see you down Frenchie Lavelle’s place.’’ 

I remarked to Davie, ‘‘She is coming to see you—no 
one else.’? And the gadflies of jealousy tormented 
me.... Davie answered, ‘‘I think she enjoys our 
work. ...Iwillbegladtoseeher....Ah... look, 
Meyer—Homer wasn’t the only one to see the rosy- 
fingered dawn.’’ . . . The barouche swung into Sixth 
Avenue and there the dawn died. 


[187 ] 


V 


Monday morning Al leads the way down the Bowery, 
past the succession of saloons, bedhouses, two-cent 
coffee places, second-hand clothing stores, oyster 
stands, rescue missions, and second-hand shoe cel- 
lars... . Underfoot it is slippery with chew-tobacco 
juice. Hverybody is busy spitting. The old-timers, 
the right-at-home bums sun themselves in the door- 
ways of lodging houses and at the corners. Panhan- 
dlers look for live ones. Fake cripples and blind men, 
offering pencils or shoe laces, whine for pennies. One 
drunk mutters, another speechifies, one sings or curses, 
and another lies prone in everybody’s way and nobody 
pays him the least notice. Sailors, stevedores, oilers, 
stokers, firemen, hobos and street walkers crowd the 
sidewalks. Country boys, threadbare and hungry-eyed, 
fortune seekers stranded in the big city, and tired- 
looking, jobless men from everywhere, wander in this 
land of the down and out. . . . Here is the city’s back- 
wash of sewerage. ... Into Park Row, continuation 
of the Bowery, at Doyers Street, where Chinatown 
begins, is Frenchie Lavelle’s bar-room and dance hall. 


It is too early for Frenchie. His barkeep expects us 
and admits us to the dance hall. It is cavernously dark, 
except for one light, a blue and yellow gas jet at the 
farther end over a piano. We see a creased bald head 
with uneven fringes of white hair bending over the 
piano keys. A full glass of whiskey stands on the music 
rest. The head is motionless. Hands creep sound- 

[ 188 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


lessly, searchingly across the keyboard.... <A few 
notes, aimless; and again silence. The door shuts be- 
hind us. Music begins.... Al whispers, ‘“Wait a 
minute. He don’t know nobody is here; that’s when he 
plays like you never heard anybody play. ... God— 
how that man can play.’ ... Davie whispers, ‘‘He is 
improvising.’’?... The music: drops of water upon 
a still pool; fugitive themes, alighting, fleeing; crash- 
ing gusts of despair, anger, protest; fantastic humors; 
shifting moods, cold, harsh, bitter, abandoned; and 
again drops of water on a still pool.... Davie is 
moved. He says, ‘‘I know what he is doing: he is think- 
ing in music.’’. .. The barkeep comes in carrying a 
glass of whiskey. ‘‘A little oil for the music box,’ he 
remarks. We follow him to the piano. The old man 
drinks up the whiskey before him and the barkeep 
places the full glass on the music rest... . So this is 
the marvelous ‘‘Piano’’ O’Brien whose playing Al can- 
not praise enough. He never uses music. Whiskey 
is his score, and he won’t play unless the whiskey is 
before him. 

Piano O’Brien rises, gives us a gallant bow and says, 
‘‘Good morning, gentlemen. I have been expecting 
you.’’. .. Alshakes his hand and introduces us. ... 
And that evening we began as singing waiters. 


The art of a singing waiter is in a class by itself. It 
consists of carrying a song over a multitude of busy 
doings, remarks, orders, servings, making change and 
cleaning tables, all done during the song. Occasionally 
you interrupt the song to sing out the order, and then 
you must immediately take up the last word and note 
where you left off. Try singing in a changing crowd— 

[ 139 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


*“<*T loved you, Nellie’-—‘Draw two!’—‘as I never’— 
‘Make it two more!’—‘loved before.’’’... During 
the heartrending moments of the piece you may have 
to make change for a two-dollar bill and reckon up the 
amount due, put down the change, receive your tip, 
move to the next table, mop its surface dry, remove 
empty glasses on a tray, call at the little door for your 
ordered drinks, pass out the right brass tags to the 
checker, show people to the tables, smile to known fre- 
quenters, laugh at a friendly gibe and stoop to pick up 
a coin thrown as a compliment to your vocal efforts. 
And then when the second chorus is reached, the four 
of us, no matter how far apart we may be, do our 
quartet stunts. 

Piano O’Brien’s deft signals holds us in key, time 
and place. Heis more than an accompanist. He is our 
guiding genius, attending our every move with tele- 
pathic accord. And so he sits the whole night, slightly 
stooped, at the piano, accompanying the singers, play- 
ing a vagrant, restful interlude, or joining the fiddler, 
cornetist and drummer in banging out the dance music 
of the day. And his eyes seem drowned in the eternal 
well of whiskey on the music rest. He appears as tire- 
Jess and detached as an automaton. He is a pale-faced 
drunkard, as though the very blood in him has turned 
into high-proof spirits. . . . Drunk unceasingly for 
many years, yet he is never the drunken man. His 
repose is deathlike, but gruesome in the midst of life. 
His eyes are like small clams congealed in alcohol. He 
has thin lips that compress into a purple straight line. 
His skin, drawn taut over forehead, cheek bones and 
jaw bone, seems petrified. His hands, only, seem 
limber and living, but the hands become as part of the 

{ 140 } 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


piano. To the world he has no personality or being 
or self except as the thing of the piano. So he is 
known as Piano O’Brien. His secrets seem hidden 
behind the glaze of his eyes. No man knows his his- 
tory. A word, a whisper here and there, has had it 
that he is an unfrocked Jesuit... . But Davie Solo- 
mon evoked glimmerings of the man he may have once 
been. He found sympathy in Davie, and it unsealed 
the years of silence. ... Once he spoke in Hebrew, 
a scholarly, meticulous Hebrew. ... Hymie, always 
curious, saluted him in Latin. And O’Brien let us 
listen to a Latin parable as crisp and clear as the new 
pages of a classic. .. . Maxie Freund, who sometimes 
came with me to rehearsals and who regarded Latin 
as the holy tongue of law, turned some of the rehearsals 
into a Latin lyceum. O’Brien was a happy teacher. 
Maxie said he was better than a thousand text-books. 
And then Sam, who until now had hobbled across a 
pianoforte with two heavy fingers, learned to use all 
his fingers under O’Brien’s instructions. 

The world comes to Lavelle’s—a world of men. 

The East Side and West Side, uptown and down- 
town, drift in, singly, and in merry batches . . . curi- 
ous lads, feeling adventurously grown up... young 
men with cigarettes dangling from their lips, careless- 
mannered, desperately affecting the nonchalance of 
rakes ... little cliques of married men, thrillingly 
frisky and wicked with the matrimonial yoke cast off 
for anight ... old men seeking youth at the fountain 
of folly . . . clean-faced college boys furiously living 
‘‘the life’? .. . swaggering gunmen, guerrillas and 
gangsters who give the place a tone . . . chummy 
groups of sailor boys and marines after a long practice 

[.141 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


cruise with faces as free and fresh as the open sea, 
consciously on a hell-raising shore leave . . . race 
track hangers-on and touts and jockeys in loud- 
patterned clothes . . . seafaring men picturing 
the nations of the world, flush with back-pay and 
pent up desire . . . pimps aflash with jewelry 
and nobby clothes . . . puffed up one-horse politi- 
cians . . cheap gamblers, loaded dice and cold deck 
artists ... cappers .. . sneak thieves, hold-up and 
second-story men... husky yeggs... roving pan- 
handlers . . . kerosene circuit actors... dope ped- 
diers . . . steerers to gambling and bawdy houses ... 
flitting, temperamental fairies, the queer effeminate 
men... slumming parties, distinguished by their full 
dress . . . a world of men. 

Of course, the main attraction is the girls, who 
wind in and out the table spaces like a garland of 
strangely strung and varied flowers. The garland has 
dragged in the dust of many roads. . . . But flowers 
are flowers ... what if they are rumpled and faded, 
soiled and drooping with rough handling .. . anyway 
there is left the suggestion of fragrance and charm 
and beauty . . . but they are not the posies they once 
were. Now they are downtown flowers—who came 
Chinatown way after being discarded by uptown. ... 
Tenderloin gets the fresh-cut flowers .. . later the 
gutter wash drifts them down to Fourteenth Street, 
and then the changing tide flings them on to the mud 
flats of the Bowery and Lavelle ’s, where they stay until 
dumped into the garbage cans of Five Points, Mulberry 
Bend and the waterfront back rooms. . . . The trench 
in Potter’s Field is the last stop. 

Lavelle’s is better than street-walking. The bright 

[142] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


lights, music, drinks, songs and jollity of good-time 
crowds help them forget that they are on their way to 
the dump heaps. ... And now this life takes on the 
sameness of the factory and department store life they 
gave up because it was dull and drab and always the 
same... this unending, inescapable sameness becomes 
the horror that may be forgotten with dope and booze’s 
specious aid. Desperate people know how to be hilari- 
ously, extravagantly happy. And the place rings with 
their high-pitched, desperate merriment. They shriek 
over our smutty songs, our double-meaning gags; weep 
over our sentimental ballads; drink deeply, chatter and 
smoke without letup; dance with vim and abandon 
and march off with their snared john to a filthy 
bedhouse with the gayety of a schoolgirl off to a 


picnic. .. . Their incessa»* smile, ringing laugh, good 
cheer, sparkling eyes, wh>’ ere they but the habits of 
their workaday life? . . . But Davie says they are 
sparks from their souls t» light the world ... that 
they are the stars of dar desire.... ‘*Whatever 


that may mean,’’I put in s'urringly. ‘Let me tell you 
what I mean,’’ persists Davie, ‘‘I mean it igs the soul 
force ever working to exalt all human conduct.”’ .. . 

O’Brien hears Davie and asks him, ‘‘Who are you— 
what are you that you love and excuse everyone?’’... 

‘‘T learned comradeship, understanding from Walt 
Whitman, love from Jesus and forgiveness from 
Maolstois?? iM 

O’Brien ruminates on the piano keys .. . fitful 
thoughts . . . again he is as one alone in a dark forest 
and listens to drops of water on a still pool.... He 
murmurs, ‘‘You Jews—how many Christs are among 
you?——-’”’?... Sam frowns at such heresy. Hymie 

[ 143 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


muses and smiles. He has told me that since he became 
a freethinker he feels a thousand pounds lighter. . . . 
Davie smiles, saying, ‘‘I hope—no more Christs. 
Christ was a dreamer, but without strength and sanity. 
Adoration of a superstitious mob turned his head; he 
succumbed to the hypnotism of their belief that he 
sprang from the godhead.’’ ... O’Brien rises, lean- 
ing against the piano, as though falling back, and he 
hears Davie remark in the most matter of fact tone, 
‘‘The hope of a better world is in the destruction of the 
god-delusion.’’ 

It is the petering out hour, morning. The lights have 
been put out except for the one over the piano. Here 
and there a drunken boy or man has fallen asleep over 
the tables. An old Chinese woman with a wizened face 
and a childish form comes and stands meekly near the 
piano. She is O’Brien’s wife, punctually arriving 
every morning to lead her husband home. O’Brien is 
nearly blind. Davie bows to her, and she jerkily bends 
her body. The scraping of a chair, quick catlike treads 
and Billie appears under the arc of gas light. She has 
come every morning for a month. Her eyes are like 
stars in a fog, and her face has the radiant whiteness 
of sun-filtered morning mist. 

As Davie speaks, I think I hear his master, Avrum 
Toledo. ... ‘‘Destroy the god-delusion. Then we 
won’t have a supreme being to blame, appease, and 
look to. God’s will—there’s the answer to war and 
horror, disease and suffering, injustice and tyranny. 
God’s will. Accept all in God’s name in God’s world, 
the best world of all possible worlds. Yield. Submit. 
We go on living in an ugly world of hate and pain and 
grief, comforting ourselves in a vision of a God’s here- 

[ 144 ] 


HAUNCH PAUN CH AND JOWL 


after. Destroy the god-delusion, and man will account 
to himself.”’ . .. 

Billie steps forward. She has not listened. She asks 
the question she has put every morning, ‘‘Dave, are 
you going home with me?’’... The question always 
makes me laugh inwardly. Everybody has a home. 
Hven Billie, the temperamental street-walker. Her 
home, most likely the barest kind of a furnished room 
somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen. And every morning 
Davie answers, kindly, patiently, ‘‘My mother, Billie, 
I can’t leave my mother.’? ... Now she asks, ‘“Are 
you on the level, you tin-Jesus; are you on the level, 
or are you just stringing me?’’... Davie laughs, 
gently, and moves close to Billie. She looks up into his 
face, and her eyelids flutter. Her hands are clutched 
at her breasts. I can see nothing else in her except the 
heightened lust of a depraved creature for a pure 
thing. But Davie, although he has rid himself of the 
god-delusion, has replaced it, as we always do, with 
another delusion. No matter what happens to the 
body, the soul force remains untainted. ... Davie 
took Billie in his arms and said, ‘‘Believe me, Billie, 
I love you.’?... It was very simple. Davie loved 
Billie because she needed him.... Billie flung her 
arms around his neck, whispering passionately, 
‘“T'ry me, Dave, I’d do anything for you. Try me, 
IBV Ot a og 


145] 


VI 


Ragtime has the whole country jogging. From the 
World’s Fair in Chicago it sent syncopated waves 
bounding across the length and breadth of the land. 
The negroes had given America its music. Soon the 
white man started stealing the negro’s music and 
making it his own. There was money in the negro’s 
music. Cultured people snickered at it. Boston, which 
at this time still claimed to be the center of culture, 
stuffed its ears. Musicians, who ruled and confined 
their art with religious dogma, raised their hands and 
voices in horror and denunciation. The élite, the elect, 
the polite, the ultra-fashionable, and their aping fol- 
lowers, despised ragtime and complacently decreed its 
early doom. But ragtime had the vitality of a people’s 
music and the whole country hummed, sang, whistled, 
two-stepped and cried for more doggerels and mad- 
dening tunes. 

The ragtime craze helped to fill Lavelle’s every 
night. I took pains to let Lavelle know that it was the 
superior work of the quartet with its many improve- 
ments and innovations that had made Lavelle’s usually 
dull season the busiest he had ever known. Slumming 
parties of full-dressed men and evening-gowned women 
came regularly in greater numbers, and they were wel- 
come as big spenders. At my suggestion Lavelle 
printed a special wine list with higher prices for their 
benefit. It was about this time that Al and I took over 
the management of the place on a percentage basis. 
Al took care of entertainment and T had charge of 
general matters. 

[ 146 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Al added a trombone to the dance orchestra. He 
' made every musician a performer. He showed the 
drummer how to throw his stick in the air and catch 
it without losing a beat. He made the cornetist go 
through contortions while playing, and taught him the 
trick of over-riding cacophony. He got interesting 
effects by making the cornetist hold a derby hat at the 
end of his horn, and got bizarre blare effects by placing 
glazed paper over the end of the trombone. The fiddler 
had to imitate the famous Rigo, a gypsy violinist. He 
made him wear a crazy wig and a short red plush 
jacket. O’Brien heightened the tempo and suddenly 
slowed it, surprising and delighting the dancers. This 
kind of music started a new kind of dancing. Al intro- 
duced the Bowery Wriggle, a dance perfectly suited to 
the eccentric rhythm. It was the father and fore- 
runner of the Turkey Trot and modern dancing. Often 
Al led the band, making the players a part of the 
hilarious dance. Until then dancing was done with 
the feet. We started the dance of the body as a thrill 
for the sightseers, and, to continue to draw them, we 
made the dances more and more animalistic. Al 
picked up Ivan Orloff, a down-and-out straggler on the 
Bowery, who had been a pupil of the St. Petersburg 
school of the ballet. He trained Orloff and Billie, a 
sinuous and graceful dancer, to give exhibition dances 
of the Bowery Wriggle. Before long everybody was 
doing the Wriggle. Militant clergymen, sensationalists 
who called themselves sociologists, who visited our 
place, instituted a campaign of sermons against 
Lavelle’s, describing it as the modern Sodom and 
Gomorrah. They succeeded in advertising our place 
extensively among their congregations and in the news- 
[ 147 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


papers and we soon got fat returns from their attacks. 

Al and Sam were busy creating original ragtime 
songs and dances. O’Brien encouraged them, saying 
its flexibility offered infinite possibilities. He urged 
them to make use of the negro plantation, levee and 
spiritual songs with their pulsating African rhythm 
and ornament them with Semitic colors and figures. ... 
Davie said that the boys ought to try for originality. 
O’Brien said there was nothing original in music. Man 
understood only a few sounds. He sneered at musi- 
sians’ technical flourishes and intricacies, declaring it 
was not music but rather a limited parlor game. A 
melody, a tune, was music; nothing else. And all 
- musical writings were differentiations of the few tunes 
known toman. He sketched the history of music. He 
took as an example church music. He jokingly referred 
to the musical reformer, Palestrina, the sixteenth cen- 
tury choirmaster and composer for the Pope, and 
declared his grand and solemn church music was noth- 
ing more than lewd tavern songs and troubadour 
chanties rearranged to meet the Sistine Chapel’s 
needs. ... It sounded unbelievable. Davie asked, 
‘“‘Do you mean he could make a solemn mass cantata 
of such a song as Sweet Rosie O’Grady?”’... We 
laughed. What could be more ridiculous? Sweet 
Rosie O’Grady, the simplest little love song that 
somehow had the widest popular appeal. It had a 
nursery and sugary refrain.... O’Brien did not 
reply. Instead he played Sweet Rosie O’Grady as it 
is usually played. Then he began to weave its strains 
until there was left only a remote suggestion, an elusive 
reminiscence of the hackneyed tune. He stopped and 
Hymie took down a Latin translation of the words as 

[ 148 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


O’Brien dictated. . . . Latin words to music that rang 
magnificently sacerdotal. We caught O’Brien’s idea. 
Al said it was great stuff for a choir and started re- 
hearsing us. We mastered the words and tempo. We 
enjoyed their solemn, strange cadence. Although we 
had watched it developing, the final effect was exotic 
and startling. During the choruses I was instructed 
to set up a sombre background of hallelujahs, and it 
was long before Al was satisfied that I gave each halle- 
lujah a proper bell-like intonation as thrown against 
Davie’s silvery flutelike tinkles. Sam fell in robus- 
tiously, and Hymie droned like an organ. O’Brien was 
pleased with the fun of the thing. He congratulated 
Al on his choir handling, saying he had the Palestrinian 
method of throwing dissimilar toned voices against 
each other and obtaining an harmonious whole... . 
*¢Palestrina, me eye,’’ scoffed Al; ‘‘that’s my old 
man’s method. He is a chazan. You know what that 
is, a cantor. He got the method from his father, and 
his father from his father, and so on. Say, Palestrina 
must be some four-flusher. The method is as old as 
the Jews.’’ 

We decided to try out Latinized and Palistrinated 
Sweet Rosie O’Grady on the mixed gathering in 
Lavelle’s. Nobody took it for the original, although 
not a note was changed. It was received as a tremen- 
dous piece of blasphemy and the foul deed of O’Brien, 
who, they were convinced, was a renegade, mocking 
priest.... A few of the girls wept as though at a 
solemn mass, and several drunken men became vocifer- 
ously conscience-stricken. A man tried to hit O’Brien 
with a chair. The slummers thought the mass music 
a great jest, but it nearly caused a riot. I saw at once 

[ 149 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


it was a mistake. Where religion is concerned no one 
has a sense of humor. Drinking people are the 
most unreasonable when a religious question comes 
up. Most bar-room fights begin in religious discus- 
sions. . . . My bouncers surrounded me, ready for the 
signal that would start their celebrated bum’s rush. 
Hach bouncer, a professional bruiser, selected a 
troublesome fellow, made a quick dash, gripped him 
by collar and scruff and the seat of his pants, ran him 
across the floor, gaining momentum near the door, 
where a properly placed kick sent the rowdy reeling 
and sprawling into the gutter. 

We are making money. Drinkers are liberal tippers. 
Drunken men submit to being overcharged and short- 
changed. The slummers paid high prices gladly; they 
would not have liked it nearly so much if it were not 
expensive. Every night we reckoned up our percent- 
age of the gate and were elated with the profits. 
Lavelle was a good sport and freely conceded that we 
had drummed up a fine business. Al and Sam wanted 
me to join them in a song publishing enterprise. I de- 
cided to bank my money to pay my way through law 
school. Yet had I invested in their publishing business, 
my money would have earned in ten years close to a 
quarter of a million dollars. Al and Sam became the 
richest publishers of popular songs. They cooked up 
the music for musical comedies; stars paid them fabu- 
lous royalties for exclusive songs, and then came the 
phonograph to grind out more royalties. They really 
owed their success to O’Brien. He opened up to them 
the storehouse of the world’s best melodies. He played 
for them for hours, and Sam and Al followed him and 
picked out the tuneful bits from the works of the mas- 

[ 150 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


ters. These tasteful bits they wove into ragtime hits. 
And their music became the music of America, and its 
leading motive was always the throbbing African 
rhythm. Davie said their music appealed because it 
had the beat-time of the living body’s blood. 

We found that Lavelle’s receipts swelled as we 
attracted the respectable citizens, who spent as lavishly 
as they were proportionately shocked. They wanted 
to see the life and excitement that they imagined was a 
continuous phantasmagoria of depravity, license and 
murder. So I decided to treat them to an occasional 
picturesque murder. I staged the scene near the piano. 
Billie and Ivan, completely disguised by queer cos- 
tumes and make-up, had just finished the Wriggle to a 
tumult of applause. It was sensual and fleshly enough 
to satisfy the cravings of the most respectable curi- 
osity. They seated themselves at a table that I had 
pushed out on the dance floor. Dago Jack, dressed in 
clothes that would gratify the sightseers’ notion of 
what a cutthroat should wear, staggered across the 
floor. Billie, on seeing him approach, rose and 


screamed. ... In the meantime my bouncers stood at 
the doors to keep timid people from running out in a 
panic... .. Dago Jack was instructed to speak lines 


that would keep the character true to the popular idea 
of a tough guy. ‘‘Cull,’’ hissed Jack, ‘‘when I sez lays 
off me moll, I means lays off, lays off, see.’ ... Ivan 
jumped up dramatically and drew a dirk from his shirt. 
The dirk had a bright colored handle that flashed in 
the gaslight. Dago Jack snarled and with a swift shift 
of his arm flung out a long-bladed stiletto which he 
caught high in the air. ... Ivan backed out on the 
dance floor with Jack following. They slowly circled 
[151] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


around each other, while the surprised onlookers 
watched with bated breath. Dago Jack made a cat-like 
leap and a desperate lunge, barely missing Ivan. Billie 
screamed. Men gasped, and a number of girls 
shrieked. ... Now Jack has Ivan on the run. Billie 
is on her knees imploring Jack. Jack makes another 
drive with the stiletto and everyone sees the blade 
slowly sink into Ivan’s back. Ivan stumbles, raises 
agonized hands, totters towards Billie and falls face- 
forward across the table, sending glasses splintering 
to the floor, and to everyone’s horror the stiletto re- 
mains sticking in Ivan’s back. Jack surveys his pros- 
trate victim with a sneer on his face, stoops and picks 
up a derby hat from the floor and hangs it on the handle 
protruding from the dead man’s back. Jack pulls his 
cap over his eyes and starts strutting across the floor. 
Near the door he calls out, ‘‘Stay where youse are, 
youse guzzlers and lobbygows, youse lousy tripe, don’t 
move. Youse seen what happened to dat spieler, well, 
culls, look out dat don’t happen to youse.’? And he 
darted out. Buzzes of conversation, craning necks, 
frightened glances. The band starts a rollicking Wrig- 
gle. Two bouncers swiftly cross the floor, carelessly 
lift up the supposedly dead Ivan and carry him off. 
And the dancing starts as though nothing had hap- 
pened, and soon Ivan returns minus his exaggerated 
make-up and no one knows him for the recently assas- 
sinated dancer. Billie also returns without her crazy 
clothes and wild make-up and the nice tragedy is kept 
intact in the minds of the thrill seekers. 

Then I hired three Chinamen with particularly yel- 
low and malevolent faces to sit at a table smoking very 
fancy opium pipes. I instructed them to glower at the 

[ 152 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


passing girls, who ordinarily would not be frightened 
by a thousand Chinamen, but, at my hint, they shrink 
back and ery out in alarm. 

There was a little bit of a girl called Millie the Stray. 
She had the frame and height of a twelve-year-old girl 
and a thin face with deep-set eyes that helped along 
the picture of girlishness. Millie joined our little play 
with gusto. As she passed the Chinamen’s table, one 
of them leaped up and placed his taloned fingers 
around her neck. She drew back, of course to the cen- 
ter of the dance floor so that the slummers would miss 
nothing, and apparently the Chinaman was choking to 
death a little girl of twelve. It was a good sadistic 
picture. Finally the Chinaman dropped Millie to the 
floor, where she lay in a convulsed heap. She cried out, 
‘‘Don’t kill me, Ly Chee, don’t kill me. I'll bring you 
all the money next time.’’ Ly Chee was an intelligent 
fellow and could speak a pretty fair English but for 
this occasion he spoke pidgin English. ‘‘Me killee 
lou, me killee lou, bling allee timee allee money, no 
floget, me killee lou.’? 

I staged police raids, fights between two girls over 
a man, a hold-up and other divertisements for the 
gullible. 

Hymie is happy. He sees a clear way through medi- 
cal college. Meantime, Lavelle’s is a clinic to him. He 
tries to win the confidence of the girls and learn the 
causes of their downfall. He listened to many romantic 
stories. He said only one girl had told him the truth, 
and she was Billie. She ascribed her downfall to curi- 
osity. He then began making notes of the girls’ state- 
ments, the general trend of their talk, their tastes and 
manners, and then came to the conclusion that the 

[ 153 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


greater part of the girls came from respectable middle 
class homes. He said he was trying to arrive at their 
psychological index number. It was as a result of his 
inquiries in Lavelle’s, coupled with his years of experi- 
ence in gynecological clinics, that he arrived at his 
finding that passionate women do not become prosti- 
tutes. He said that the ecstatic, vibrant quality of a 
passionate woman’s love life is so holy to her that she 
cannot give herself promiscuously. It is the woman, 
he reasoned, to whom the physical relationship is not 
beautiful and glorious, who finds it easy to give her 
body freely. 


154} 


Vil 


It was long past noon. I slept heavily after a busy 
night in Lavelle’s. Through my sleep swam the figure 
of Hsther, always above me, always eluding me. I 
woke slowly to a heavy pounding on the door. The 
pounding kept up. Mother was out, and I got up and 
opened the door. Dopie Ikie was there with a message 
that a couple of guys wanted to see me down in the 
Talkers’ Café. I dressed and started down the stairs. 
Half way down I collided with Lillie the Teaser. I for- 
got all about the message that had been brought me 
and grabbed Lillie in my arms. She asked what I was 
doing, but I noticed she made no effort to free herself. 
1 kissed her many times and then she whispered, 
“*Meyer, people will see us here.”? . . . I took her hand 
and led her up the stairs, and when we came to my door 
she asked, ‘‘Where are you taking me?’’... Lillie 
was ambitious to go on the stage. She had heard I was 
manager of Lavelle’s and that we were making a big 
success. So I told her I wanted to talk with her about 
going on the stage. She went into the house with me. 
I locked the door and she said nothing. She stood 
trembling near the table. I looked at her golden love- 
liness and my brain seemed to swim. One thought 
came into my mind. I remembered Hymie’s phrase. 
IT had put my finger on Lillie’s psychological index 
number. Her eyes were dilated and her breast moved 
rapidly. The egotist was always supreme in me and 
I cried out, ‘‘Lillie, do you love me??? . .. Her words 

[ 155 J | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


came out in little gasps: ‘‘Meyer—Meyer, do you love 
Me ss 

We sat on the couch. Lillie’s nervous fingers were 
trying to put up her jumbled hair. Tears ran down her 
flaming face and her body shook. She turned her head 
away fromme. A knock on the door. Lillie shuddered 
and I shot my hand out, covering her mouth. I called 
out, ‘‘Who is it?”’... ‘It’s me, Dopie. Didn’t I tell 
you a couple of guys is waitin’ for you?’”’... ‘‘All 
right. Tell them I’ll be right down.’’ 


[156] 


Vill 


The Talkers’ Café is on Division Street, facing our 
little square. It is a tea house, a rendezvous for the 
freethinkers of the Ghetto. Avrum, Davie and Hymie 
are seated at a table near the window. I sit down and 
look out on the cobbled square, aswarm with half-naked 
children playing in the hot July sun. Hymie is looking 
through a big text-book and Davie is writing on the 
back of a soiled menu card. Avrum regards Davie 
with anxious eyes. The place is full of talking, gesticu- 
lating men. A poster on the wall announces a Yom 
Kippur (Day of Atonement) picnic to be given by the 
Truth and Light Bund. It is a gesture of contempt 
and defiance. The young Jews wish to show the extent 
of their emancipation by feasting and revelling on the 
orthodox Jews’ holiest fast day. I remember that 
Avrum is against the freethinkers holding the picnic. 
He is a pacifist. He thinks no good is done by antago- 
nizing people; that we should reason patiently with 
the unenlightened. 

Avrum sent for me. He has not wanted to leave 
Davie alone. He tells me Davie has decided to marry 
Billie. Avrum thinks Davie’s act is prompted by his 
desire to atone to Billie for the wrong man in general 
has done to her. Avrum thinks no good will be done 
to Billie by sinking Davie’s life and career with hers. 
Avrum says Davie has the sacrifice mania. . . . Hymie 
looks up. It is the sort of analysis that tickles him. 
Davie smiles shyly at Avrum. ... ‘The Christ 
mania.’’ . . . He starts to tear the menu in small 

[157 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


pieces. . . . ‘‘No,’? Davie continues, ‘‘I am not so 
noble. . . . I think you will notice that people love 
in two ways. One kind loves the person he needs for 
his happiness, the other kind loves the person who 
needs him. First I was drawn to Billie because she 
needed me. I suppose it is a compliment hard to re- 
sist. . . . Now it has become so that I need Billie. She 
is beautiful. She is an artist. She has a good mind. 
{ tell you it matters nothing to me what she has 
been.”’?... I start to speak, ‘‘She is not normal. The 
normal, every-day existence will not hold her. She is 
intense. She will take you >... Avrum holds up 
his hand. He says, ‘‘There is nothing more to say. 
I feel now that Davie loves her. It may not be as you 
think, Meyer.’’ He smiles, apologetically, and says, 
‘‘Meyer, you know you are something of a hard realist: 
you have a one way mind.’”?... I remark casually, 
‘‘All right, have it your way, it’s none of my 
funeral.’’ ... Across the street I see Esther turning 
into Ludlow Street. . . . Esther has lost Davie. I am 
glad of that, the egotist in me rejoices. And now you 
have lost me, Esther, I tell myself; but I am not quite 
so sure that Lillie can make me forget Esther. Gretel 
could not do it... . And there is Lillie talking with 
Esther at the corner. She is smiling and gay. ...I 
thought Lillie would be hiding somewhere, crying her 
heart out. . . . I had forgotten Lillie was a good 
actress . . . and I think, maybe, she is happy be- 
cause she loves me. That is a pleasing thought. . . . 
On my way down to Lavelle’s that evening I found 
Lillie at the corner, waiting for me. Esther is on the 
stoop, and I try not to think of her. Gretel looks after 
me out of the window. I have just left her. I think to 
[ 158 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


myself, Gretel is just like a wife. No matter what I do, 
I come back to her. She seems to round out the day 
for me. I realized years later that between Gretel and 
me there was a happy physical affinity. 


I suggest a matinée, next Saturday afternoon; Lillie 
agrees with a nod and I tell her where to meet me. . . 
I took her to a burlesque show and then to a furnished 
room house. . . . Lillie is just good to look at, but one 
cannot everlastingly look at a face. She is dull, pas- 
sionless, complaisant. ... So, afew years later, when 
Sam fell in love with Lillie, I advised her to marry him. 
She was not in the least offended by my suggestion. In 
time she became engaged to Sam and married him. I 
think she was torpidly true to her husband and was 
likely to stay so unless a forceful person came along 
and annoyed her into changing her mind. 


[159] 


IX 


O’Brien’s piano is like a waterfall in a cavern that 
takes the colors and reflections of the advancing day’s 
humors and melts into a living murmur of night. Har- 
monies ripple from his fingers, changeful scores from 
the world’s masterpieces, which Al and Sam heed with 
the rapture of treasure hunters. Sam shouts in glee 
that he can twist a blareful, stirring Wagnerian fugue 
into nigger jazbo stuff. Al tells him, ‘‘ Well, kid, jazz 
her up.’’ It was the beginning of their use of the word 
‘¢jazz.’’? Whenever they appropriated a melody or 
strain they simply jazzed it up into one of their synco- 
pated hodgepodges. 

Now Billie, whimpering, runs like a frightened crea- 
ture from Davie to O’Brien. She is as one who has 
wandered in dark places and suddenly comes upon a 
brilliant sunrise. And she whimpers, ‘‘He wants to 
marry me.’’ Orloff’s cloudy face turns ashen. His 
eyes blink in the glorious light. O’Brien turns his 
head. But Al and Sam are lost in the meshes of the 
colorful embroiderings of their musical tapestry. 

‘‘He wants to marry me.’’ Billie weeps on 
O’Brien’s shoulder. . . . ‘‘Hey, girlie,’’ cries Al, 
‘‘you’re making a bum outta the rehearsal.’’ ... 
Soon the rehearsal starts again, but first there is 
Davie’s idea of a wedding. He takes Billie’s hand, 
saying, ‘‘Before the world I take you as my wife, 
my mate. Do you take me as your husband, your 
mate?’’ ... And in this wise Billie and Davie were 
married. 

[ 160 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


A barfly stumbles among the tables, lighting up the 
place. Orloff fingers a slim-bodied glass that had held 
Billie’s last absinthe potion. He muses with Russ 
retrospection: a woman becomes desired by many as 
soon as one man wants to marry her.... Now he 
understands why Billie would have nothing to do with 
him. ... He speaks of himself as a playboy of the 
world’s pleasure marts. . . . Like most educated Rus- 
sians, his keenest interest in life is analyzing emotions. 
He observes with a mixture of contempt and amuse- 
ment that there is none so faithful and straitlaced as 
a courtesan when she finds respectable love. She is 
beyond the temptation of mere flesh. Fed-up people 
find it easy to forswear fleshpots. The simple fare of 
virtue has an exotic flavor. Tired out roués become 
home-loving husbands. The sex problem begins after 
marriage for the man who has been chaste. Marriage 
awakens his sex life. After marriage his eyes and 
thoughts follow attractive women. If you don’t sow 
your wild oats before marriage, you are likely to sow 
them after. So he thinks Billie’s heartaches will be 
many. Davie is too good-looking, and Billie will be tor- 
tured with jealousy. People always judge others to be 
at least as bad as they themselves are. Ask any prosti- 
tute. She will tell you that there isn’t a single virtuous 
woman in the whole world. She knows—her self is the 
gauge. ... Inshort, Orloff reasons Billie would have 
been better off with him. Orloff is right. The trouble 
with the world is that people can’t get away from 
justifying themselves. 

The summer is drawing to a close. I have seen little 
of Hsther. Harry Wotin interested her in a milk 
station for sickly babies, where she works as an inter- 

[ 161 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


preter and assistant to the doctors. The milk station 
was Harry’s idea. Barney Finn got his spinster aunt 
to finance the place. Esther, Barney and Harry are as 
happy as only people can be who think they are succor- 
ing a dying world. 

One day I persuaded Esther to take a day off. We 
made a gala holiday of it on the beach of Coney Island. 
I showed off like a schoolboy, displaying all the aquatic 
tricks I had learned as an East River wharf rat, and 
Esther, who timidly lingered in the surf, was impressed 
with my strength and daring. Most of the day we 
frolicked in the water. The only chance we had to talk 
was when we lunched on the sand under the boardwalk. 
She spoke of Davie. It came like a black cloud to 
darken the day.... ‘‘Is he happy? Has he kept on 
with his poetry? He must have loved her with a rare 
love to have taken her.’’? . . . I said I did not want to 
talk of anyone but Esther. And she answered, ‘‘ Then 
there is nothing to talk about.” ... I began to 
sulk.... ‘Meyer, please let us be good friends. I 
don’t want any lovemaking. I don’t want anything to 
take my mind off what I have set out to do.’?. . . Thad 
it. Esther was heartbroken over Davie, and she was 
looking for forgetfulness and consolation in giving her 
life to the children of the East Side. Esther looked out 
on the water, and my spirits sank as I saw the calm 
repose of her face and her eyes alight with joy at the 
beauty of the sky and sea. And she was more baffling 
than ever to me... 

Late that afternoon we returned to Ludlow Street. 
To my great surprise I found Billie sitting on my 
stoop. Her face was convulsed with held-back tears. 
Her eyes were wild with fear and she spoke in a hollow 

[ 162 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


voice. ‘‘Meyer, they took him away in an ambulance.”? 
Esther ’s face blanched and she cried out, ‘‘Oh, Davie— 
what happened to him?’’... The two girls stood 
looking at each other. I sent a little boy running to 
fetch Avrum. ... Billie turned her back to Esther. 

‘‘We were sleeping this morning, me cuddled up like 
a baby under his arm. And Davie started to toss, and 
I heard his breath puff in little gasps, and his hands 
began pulling at me like he was trying to save himself 
from going under. When I sat up I saw blood bubbling 
from his mouth, running down his white neck like 
burns. AndI screamed. People came, andacop. He 
rung for an ambulance and the doc said he was in a 
bad way, and they took him away over the river to that 
pest house on Blackwell’s Island, the place they call 
City Hospital. I went there and they wouldn’t let me 
near him; said visiting days was only twice a week; 
nearest one is two days off. All they would tell me, 
he’s very sick. The con and something else. The 
something else—they wouldn’t tell me what that was. 
What am I gonna do? Meyer, what am I gonna do? 
I got to see him. I just got to see him.”? 

Her face softened under the flood of tears. ‘‘I guess 
I got to let his mother know. I guess it’s only right I 
should.”? ... Esther spoke to her quietly, ‘‘Please 
don’t tell his mother. Wait until we know something 
more. Maybe then we will have better news.” 

‘“‘You’re Hsther, ain’t you? You’re the girl he 
thinks so much of.’’ 

Avrum came. He shook hands with Billie, and 
stroked her arm. ‘‘Hold fast,’’ he said, ‘‘it might not 
be so bad as you think. We will do everything, every- 
thing for Davie. Everybody loves Davie.’? Billie 

[ 163 j 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


smiled and looked around, saying, ‘‘Everybody. Guess 
that’s right. There’s nothing else to do but love him. 
There’s no harm or hate or bad in him. He feels for 
everything and everyone. I guess that’s why he could 
take up with me.’’ 

Avrum and I took Billie to see Lavelle, who brought 
us to see Big Jim Hallorhan, the political boss of the 
lower end of Manhattan. Hallorhan owned the build- 
ing which housed Lavelle’s dance hall, and Hallorhan’s 
ownership put Lavelle’s place beyond police interfer- 
ence. Hallorhan towered over us. He had a pink, 
fleshy round face supported by a bull neck that rested 
on bulging shoulders. He heard Billie’s story. He 
rang for a bartender. Hallorhan’s office was in the 
back room of a Bowery saloon. The bartender brought 
paper and pencil. Hallorhan with a big, clumsy hand 
wrote, ‘‘Dinty Shea shake hands with bearer Meyer 
Hirsch a regular fellow he’s one of the boys Jim Hal- 
lorhan.’’ Hallorhan told me to take the note over to 
the City Hospital and see Dinty Shea. ‘‘He’ll fix 
you up.’’ 

Hallorhan’s note worked wonders. Dinty Shea said 
Davie would be put in a private room with a special 
nurse and have the best of everything. Billie begged 
to be allowed to stay with him. Dinty said, ‘‘I’ll do 
anythin’ for Big Jim.’’ Then we were taken up to see 
Davie. He was lying in a long ward congested with 
beds, where all the sick men and boys seemed to be 
complaining and groaning at one time. A nurse put a 
screen around his bed and the three of us sat down and 
looked at Davie, sunk in a heavy, perspiring slumber. 
Billie whispered, ‘‘Look at my boy, laying there all 
give out like a baby. Look at his golden curls laying 

[ 164 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


on his head like they was tired out, too.’’ His face 
had the color of refined wax with just a tinge of yellow. 
His eyes opened and he lay there looking at the ceiling 
without seeing us. Then Billie sobbed. Davie was too 
spent to move. He called out in a whisper, ‘‘Don’t 
ery, Billie, I’m all right.’’ And Billie laid her wet 
cheek on his hand. Avrum stood up, smiling in Davie’s 
face. ‘‘See, Billie,’’ said Davie, ‘‘there’s Avrum, like 
aray of sunshine. Tell her, Avrum, people get sick 
and people get well.’’ 

We waited while Davie was being transferred to a 
private room. The doctor, a young interne, trying to 
be as matter-of-fact as possible, told us that Davie was 
suffering from a bad case of pulmonary tuberculosis, 
to say nothing of some other serious complication. He 
said, ‘‘There’s no use filling you with false hope. 
He can’t last long.’’ 

Billie moaned, ‘‘I done for him. I done for 
him.’’ . . . She paced up and down the corridor. . . . 
‘*Say—God—God—what did you want to do it for! 
I thought you sent me Davie to make me go straight 
and clean. No, you sent him to punish me. You saved 
up all the dirt to give the first clean man I met, the 
first man I loved, the first man who loved me.’’... 
She leaned against the wall. ‘‘I know why you done it, 
God. You wanted to get even with me for what I done 
to my mother. Now, God, I’m punished enough. Let 
my Davie get better, give him back, I pray God, give 
me back my Davie. Without him I’ll be a drifter 
again.’’ 

Davie did not get better. Even an interne may be 
right. Kverybody knew Davie was dying except Billie. 
In her extreme grief she turned to prayer. The burden 

: [ 165 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


of her prayer was, ‘‘Let up, God, don’t you see I am 
punished enough.’? But Davie had another hemor- 
rhage. So the time came that his mother had to be 
told. Mrs. Solomon had begun asking anxiously after 
him. He had not come to spend the last Sabbath day 
with her. It was the one day of the week he gave to his 
mother after his marriage. I brought her to the hos- 
pital, making it easier for her to bear by saying his 
illness was inevitable. Davie’s father had died of the 
shop sickness, and I convinced her that consumption 
was the one inheritance the father had left the 
son. She did not so much as look at Billie. When 
the neighbors heard that Davie had married a Gentile 
they urged the mother to disown her son, and never 
see him again. But in her eyes her son could do 
no wrong and she stopped all discussion about his 
marriage. ... ‘‘Mamma,’’ said Davie, ‘‘here is my 
wife, Billie.”? . .. Mrs. Solomon looked at him, dis- 
traught and constricted. . . . ‘‘She don’t want to 
know the likes of me,’’ said Billie. ... And all the 
mother could do was to stand alongside of the bed and 
look and look and look at her baby who was fading 
away under her eyes.... Esther and Avrum came. 
We were all silent and solemn. Only the object of our 
commiseration was smiling and cheerful. Little pink 
spots burned under his eyes, which were steadily 
glassy. He seemed to sense in our silence, not so much 
distress over his condition, as a unanimous censure 
upon Billie for his condition. ... ‘‘Billie,’’ said he, 
‘‘come sit on the bed so that my head may rest upon 
your breast. I want you close to me, so that when I go 
I shall feel that I am passing into your wondrous heart. 
Billie, I bequeath—to you a memory . . . and this is 
[ 166 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the memory: I love you, believe in you . . . you gave 
me fulfillment and happiness. .. . Do many men die 
happy in the fulfillment of their belief? . . . Friends, 
I leave you a heritage—believe in the soul in people— 
the soul is incorruptible. If I could tell you the fulfill- 
ment my well-beloved showed me. . . . If I could 


tell. .. . Inexpression: stillborn ... yet racked with 
the aches of creation .. . tortured thoughts .. . tor- 
tured ... in travail for expression . . . feeling, feel- 
ing, fine and fierce . . . immured in the sealed sepul- 
chre of inexpression.’? .. . And so Davie died with a 


poem on his lips. 

Davie’s death stirred anew the scandal of his mar- 
riage to a schicksie (Gentile girl). Mrs. Solomon went 
to the shammos to arrange for his interment in the 
synagogue’s burial ground. Mendel Gerditsky bal- 
anced himself on his good limb and told her that 
Davie’s marriage had excommunicated him, and there- 
fore he could not be placed in the congregation’s con- 
secrated burial plot. His presence would defile the 
sanctity of the place. However, he would call a meet- 
ing of the trustees to consider the matter. The refusal 
to bury Davie in the Grodno Cemetery brought all the 
members to the trustee’s meeting. The synagogue was 
crowded. Rov Zucker sat up front to the right of the 
Torah cabinet. The gabbe, Jake Weingrad, recently 
elected because of his generous contributions of a new 
Torah and a new coat of paint for the benches, stood 
by the prayer stand in front of the Torah cabinet and 
presided over the buzzing meeting. In Jake Wein- 
grad’s opinion the matter was a simple one. Davie 
could not be buried in holy ground. He would disturb 
the peace of the dead. The matter seemed settled. 

[ 167 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Rov Zucker stroked his beard, and turned the pages of 
alarge volume. Trustee after trustee, glad of a chance 
to make a fervent speech, denounced Davie and his 
terrible sin. Mrs. Solomon pulled her shawl tight 
around her shoulders, left the woman’s compartment 
and mounted the central service platform. She spoke, 
and the congregation was shocked into silence by the 
temerity of a woman intruding in the men’s part of 
the synagogue. ‘‘Here is my spot,’’ she said, ‘‘here 
I will remain until death overtakes me, until my son 
is laid to rest by his father’s side among his own 
people.’’?... At this point I nudged Maxie Freund 
to raise the technical questions that he and I decided 
upon in order to confuse gabbe Weingrad. He strode 
down the aisle and addressed the gabbe. ‘‘Who says 
the deceased is married to a Gentile! Who can prove 
it? You are condemning his soul to eternal wandering 
by refusing to inter him in hallowed ground. What 
proof is there of his marriage? Who can show one 
tittle of evidence that the deceased was married to any 
woman in a constituted tribunal, church or syna- 
gogue?’’ Rov Zucker shook his head, commendingly. 
Maxie continued, ‘‘It is therefore that I suggest that 
you call upon a student of our own laws, who at the 
same time is a student of the American law, to tell us 
what evidence, if any, there is of a marriage. Let Mr. 
Meyer Hirsch tell of the painstaking inquiry he has 
made of this unfortunate affair.’’ ... Maxie deliy- 
ered the speech we had cooked up together, in his quiet 
yet compelling style. I got upon the service platform 
and asked permission of my elders to present the 
known facts of the case. I decided upon a formula of 
repetition. I knew that an oft-repeated statement 
[ 168 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


gathers strength and intimidates. I demanded, ‘‘Who 
among you can say of his own knowledge that the 
deceased was married? No one. Who will dare to 
fasten a wife, a forbidden alliance, upon the poor boy 
now silenced until judgment day? No one. Nobody 
knows of his own knowledge that Davie Solomon was 
married. Are we women in the market place that we 
heed every rumor? No, we are men concerned with 
actualities and facts. Davie Solomon is not married. 
Who can produce the wife? Noone. There is no wife. 
He is not married, no woman can claim him according 
to the law of this land and least of all according to the 
law of Israel. I have seen the deceased every day for 
the past ten years, every day I have seen him, and I can 
say that he is unmarried according to all legal under- 
standing. He is not married! And no one can prove 
the contrary! He is not married!’’ 

Many heads were shaken from side to side in sur- 
prise at my eloquence. They recalled my confirmation 
harangue. Whispers flew about, started by Maxie, that 
I was a remarkable lawyer in the making. 

Gabbe Weingrad was nonplussed. He appealed to 
the Rabbi for an opinion. 

Rov Zucker spoke thus: ‘‘I have heard many grown 
men say, do not bury the dead young man, he is married 
to a schicksie. Yet not one of these grown men have 
told us how they know that the young man was mar- 
ried. I have heard a youth declare he is unmarried. 
Can anyone contradict him, contradict him with 
proof?’’ 

The trustees decided to bury Davie. In the mean- 
time Avrum had told the hospital authorities that 
Davie had requested him to leave his body in the hos- 

[ 169 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


pital to be dissected by medical students. But Mendel 
Gerditsky, the redoubtable beadle, raised a great storm 
in the office of the hospital and Davie’s remains, 
slightly hacked here and there, were turned over 
to him. 

The funeral was interesting. The dispute over 
his burial brought throngs of curious. The Ludlow 
Streeters turned out in a body in honor of their pal. 
They had considered him a pal ever since he made a 
hit in the toughest joint in the city. The Essex Street 
Guerrillas came in six carriages which Shimshin had 
blackmailed a local livery stableman into providing. 
O’Brien was led in by his Chinese wife to peer at 
Davie’s face with his dim eyes. Frenchie Lavelle, 
inopportunely, came with a wreath, which I hid under 
the stairs. Bartenders, burglars, pimps, Davie’s City 
College and school teachers and many others who had 
known the strange boy and loved him, squeezed into 
the small flat to look upon him for the last time. Soon 
Ludlow Street became an immovable mass. As the 
crowd grew, everybody for blocks around came to see 
what brought such a gathering. And it was with great 
difficulty that the funeral procession started for the 
Grand Street ferry en route to the cemetery in 
Brooklyn. But, in all that great conclave, Billie could 
not be found. And Davie was buried with all the cere- 
mony he despised, and, with his passing, his bride of 
fulfillment disappeared as though she, too, were swal- 
lowed up by the earth. 


[1704 


x 


“Aren't you going to schule (synagogue) ?’’ mother 
asked. She has just finished lighting and blessing the 
candles. A yahrzeit (death anniversary) candle lamp 
burned on the shelf over the stove in father’s memory. 
It was the eve of sacred Yom Kippur. 

T hardly heard her question, so engrossed was I ina 
book on criminal law. The door opened and Maxie 
Freund pussyfooted into the kitchen. He had just 
passed his Regents’ examination with great ease— 
after paying one of the examiners twenty-five dollars, 
thereby sparing himself another year’s preparation. 
Big Jim Hallorhan put me next to the examiner, and 
I arranged the easing detail for Maxie. 

Maxie greeted Uncle Philip, who was lying stretched 
out upon the couch, smoking a pipe. Philip now used 
a pipe because it was more economical than cigarettes. 
It seems the more money he made, the more frugal he 
became. ... ‘‘Good evening, Herr Capitalist, may 
your fast be a light one.’?... ‘‘May your fasts be 
many and heavy,’’ responded Philip. Maxie wished 
mother a good year and a light fast, and then saluted 
me with ‘‘Good evening, Judge.’’... Philip puffed 
stentoriously, blowing little clouds of smoke over his 
head. Mother remonstrated with him: ‘‘Philip, what 
will the neighbors think and say to see you smoking on 
Yom Kippur?’’ To which Philip replied, ‘‘Let them 
shut their eyes, the scared jackasses.’’ 

Mother again pleads, ‘‘Meyer, please go to schule. 
It is Yom Kippur. Every Jew, no matter what an 
Epikaros (Epicurean) he may be the rest of the year, 

FA74)] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


goes to schule one day—on Yom Kippur. Please, if 
only for my sake, go to schule.”?... I tell mother 
that I plan to spend the holy day in study, as law school 
opens the following week. Whereupon Maxie inter- 
poses in the singsong of the Talmudist, ‘‘On the other 
hand, your honor, I think attendance at the synagogue 
may be properly classified as part of your preparation 
for lawyership.’? . . . ‘‘How do you make that out?”’ 
inquires Philip, who credits Maxie with sharp wits. 
And Maxie reasons in this wise: ‘‘To begin with it 
keeps him before the eyes of a lot of people. It stamps 
him a solid, respectable member of the community. It 
gives him a chance to impress a number of people. 
Kiverybody needs a lawyer some time, and the man 
before their eyes is the most likely one theyll think of 
when that time comes.’’ So Philip says, ‘‘Get off to 
schule, Meyer. Hereafter be a regular attendant, 
mind. Maxie is right. Strut before them. They ll 
take you to be the man you say you are. Impress them. 
Make yourself their lawyer, the only lawyer they ll 
think of. Stick your oar into their congregational 
affairs. Advertise yourself. Start off with giving them 
free advice. They’ll pay well later on. Do things for 
them. Get them used to having you do things for 
them.’? ... After which I and Maxie became regular 
schule-goers. 

Yom Kippur morning I accompanied mother to 
schule. I noticed a crowd in front of the Talkers’ Café. 
The onlookers were highly scandalized and offended. 
The Ghetto freeminded elements were publicly eating 
on the most sacred of sacred fast days. The supersti- 
tious expected to see the traducers stricken on the spot. 
The tolerant deplored their bad taste. In the window a 

[172] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


large poster invited the public to come to a Yom Kip- 
pur picnic at North Beach. The Talkers’ Café was the 
only restaurant open in the entire East Side. The news 
of the open, defiant sacrilege spread, and, by noon- 
time, when I left the schule for a breath of air, I found 
a dense mob in front of the café. Indignation grew as 
the hungry fasters beheld the impudent unbelievers 
dine with ostentation. . . . Soon Boolkie and his lads 
used the ready contents of overflowing garbage cans 
with which to pelt the men and women who went in and 
out of the café. The dodging and fleeing of the calumni- 
ators amused the crowd. Boolkie, spurred by popular 
approval, then hurled a cobblestone which smashed the 
large plate-glass window. This was received with an 
uproar of acclaim. Then began a shower of stones, 
bricks and any missile that came to hand, and the café 
became untenable. When the freethinkers rushed out 
of the bombarded position the crowd pursued them 
until they were dispersed in all directions. A few were 
caught and severely drubbed and the café was com- 
pletely wrecked. 

By this time the exercise and excitement had made 
the gangsters good and hungry. They could get noth- 
ing to eat at home. They had just stoned men and 
women who dared to eat openly on a holy fast day, © 
and they themselves were now thinking of ways and 
means of getting food. Everybody is agreed that con- 
sistency is the height of cruelty. . . . Big Joe reported 
that he had a line on a lot of good stuff. Mrs. Wein- 
grad, he said, was in schule and her ice-box was 
crammed full of ‘‘yum-yum, boys.’’ And he licked his 
chops, making everybody’s mouth water as he de- 
scribed each delectable, giving us to understand his 

[ 173 } 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


representations were as per tasted sample. It was too 
much for Boolkie. He hastened a detail of youngsters 
to raid the ice-box and bring the stuff to a secluded 
backyard in Canal Street. They returned forthwith 
with a large roast duck, gefilte fisch, white holiday 
bread, the light and toothsome challah, a variety of 
fruit and a big honey cake. Everybody cried out, 
** “Yum-yum, boys,’ is right; Yum-yum.’’ So the cham- 
pions of the fast observance made an excellent meal 
from the Weingrads’ larder, fattened for an after-the- 
fast-feast. 

All of which reminded me that T was ravenously 
hungry and there was nothing to be had at home. I met 
Lillie and asked her if she were hungry. She just 
laughed. Lillie never did anything. She was the kind 
that was always made to do the thing. I told her to 
slip up to the station of the Third Avenue elevated, 
where I would wait for her. She just laughed, as much 
as to imply, well, the sin is on you, you’re making 
me do it. 

We got off at Fourteenth Street, where there were 
a number of Gentile restaurants. We could not get 
into any one of them. They were packed with my 
hungry co-religionists, and the waiters told me that 
Yom Kippur was their busiest day of the year. We 
had to walk up to Twenty-eighth Street before we 
could find an eating place with a free table. How 
we enjoyed the hearty meal! <A fast day always puts 
an edge on an appetite. And Lillie just laughed when 
I took her again to the furnished room house. ... I 
hurried back to the Synagogue and was in time for the 
solemn closing services. In all it was an interesting 
day. 

[ 174] 


XI 


Came brisk October evenings with electioneering’s 
carnival confusion. Brass bands; fireworks; red splut- 
tering torches; bonfires; ringing bombasts; button- 
holings; cigar-giving and whiskey swilling; monster 
mass meetings; parades; streamers; picture buttons; 
badges; gaudy and glittering banners snapping in the 
wind; walls, windows, fences, ash cans and packing 
eases plastered with posters screaming slogans and 
promises and showing the heavily postured likenesses 
of the candidates. And the wind swirls the torn and 
discarded multi-colored campaign literature high in the 
air like so much confetti. At the corners, crowds gather 
to hear cart-tail orators. Their faces are like burnished 
copper under the kerosene flare lamps. The speakers 
blare as usual the annual ass-solo of balderdash and 
buncombe, so sweet to the ears of jackasses. They 
listen in the same open-mouthed, naively spellbound 
way, clap their hands and cheer in the ready fashion 
of the habitually gullible. 

Maxie and I attended the political meetings to get 
lessons in public speaking. The excitement was catch- 
ing, and it seemed so easy to sway the multitude that 
I just itched for a chance to try my powers over them. 
Besides, Maxie said, the best way to learn public speak- 
ing was to take the stump yourself. Then we consid- 
ered what party would be best for us to join. . . . The 
Jewish business men were disposed to vote Republican. 
They felt after Cleveland’s disastrous free trade ad- 
ministration that a Republican high tariff wall would 

[175 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


keep out hard times. At this time, however, the bulk 
of the Hast Side, politically, was negligible. Many 
were not in the country long enough to become citizens. 
Many who could qualify for citizenship could not spare 
the time. It took several precious mornings to become 
a citizen. By making these men citizens and control- 
ling their votes, but a few years later, I was able to ask 
the older bosses to reckon with me as a political some- 
body. I got my idea from the Socialists, who were con- 
stantly urging the workmen to become citizens and 
make themselves felt in the parliamentary functioning 
of their country. I went them one better. I arranged 
for a quick and easy process in the courts to change 
them from aliens to citizens, flattered the new citizens 
into joining my club, did them trifling favors and paid 
them a few dollars on election day. The secret of 
political power and swinging local districts to success 
is told in a few words. The average man under our 
system of pull and favoritism believes that any day 
he may need a favor, and it is for this possible favor he 
puts his franchise in pawn. ... The Socialists had 
put a ticket in the field and except for a great deal of 
pre-election oratory confined to the Ghetto—elsewhere 
they were beaten off—they were considered perma- 
nently insignificant because their total vote on election 
day was one of the jokes of the times. ... So Maxie 
and I looked over the political prospect for personal 
opportunity only. We were concerned with no other 
issue but just what we could get out of it. It was mani- 
fest to us that the lawyers who succeeded in court were 
those with pull. And it was evident that Tammany 
ruled the city, although the Republicans held national 
sway. So we decided to become Democrats. We 
[ 176 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


attached ourselves to Big Jim Hallorhan’s club. I 
gave up singing in Lavelle’s, only giving a couple of 
hours a night to getting things running. Al reorgan- 
ized the quartet after Davie’s death and after Hymie 
dropped out to take up studies at medical school. 

I made my maiden speech in Big Jim’s clubrooms. 
As the meeting was attended mostly by his Irish con- 
stituents, I made it a fulsome piece of adulation of the 
philanthropies of the Big Boss, the pee-pul’s one and 
only friend. His eleemosynary works consisted of giv- 
ing out a few dozen shoes in the winter, free Thanks- 
giving baskets and a free picnic for women and 
children in the summer. 

Big Jim told me to tackle the East Side. He wanted 
to put a crimp in the Republicans, and he was the only 
man at that time who foresaw the growth of the Social- 
ist vote among the Jews. He was also worried about 
the Italians. He thought their warm blood would 
respond to the Socialistic appeal. Big Jim was shrewd. 
I organized a flying squadron of youthful spellbinders, 
and we made a rousing campaign. Maxie instructed 
the speakers to stress the few points that we made our 
political stock in trade. We represented the Democrats 
as the common people’s party, painted the Repub- 
licans as the silk-stockinged bluebloods, and lied atro- 
ciously about the Socialists. We fastened upon them 
every crime of radicalism, called them freethinkers, 
free lovers, enemies of God and the sanctity of the 
family. We gave them an odor that they have been 
unable to shake off to this day. We used rough-house 
tactics in breaking up their meetings, and even rotten- 
egeed Republican rallies. The hoodlums and the police 
were with us. I recruited Boolkie and his gang, im- 

Ra 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


pressing upon them that political pull afforded police 
immunity. — 

The day before election was ‘‘dough day,’’ the day 
each district captain received a roll of money for ju- 
dicious use on election day. The price of a vote in those 
days was two dollars, and to a poor man, who saw no 
farther than his instant belly needs, this was a lot of 
money. When I saw the money circulating, I confided 
to Big Jim that I had a gang of strong-arm men work- 
ing for me and that they were ready for his orders. 
Big Jim assigned his lieutenant, Red Mike Dooley, to 
put the boys to work. Red Mike conferred with various 
district captains and then handed me cards bearing the 
names and addresses of voters and their districts. My 
boys were to vote in the names of these citizens, who 
were known Republicans and doubtful Democrats. 
Red Mike accompanied the gang, pointed them out to 
the election inspectors as the right guys and then the 
boys entered the booths, voting straight and regular. 
They were armed with clubs and blackjacks to over- 
come such slight opposition as they might encounter. 
The Ludlow Streeters spent an hilarious day dashing 
about town in carriages, voting willy-nilly, stealing 
ballot boxes with the connivance of policemen and sub- 
stituting others in their place. I paid the boys ten 
dollars and I pocketed one hundred dollars as fair 
compensation for generalship. 

Tammany, as usual, swept the city. There was a big 
celebration on election night, and I led the Ludlow 
Streeters and others in a local torchlight parade. We 
carried brooms as a symbol of the clean sweep. The 
parade stopped in front of Big Jim’s club. I instructed 
Maxie to stay with the paraders and stimulate their 

[ 178 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


cheering while [ went in to felicitate Big Jim. He wag 
surrounded by a large gathering of drinking men, 
and I noticed he was the only one who did not take a 
drop. I shook hands with him. Our band was playing 
‘*A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,’’ and when it 
stopped our fellows began to cheer under Maxie’s 
leadership. Many cheers were given for Big Jim. 
Then the name of Meyer Hirsch was cheered. ‘‘Who’s 
the bunch outside?’’ asked Big Jim, cordially. ‘‘That’s 
my club, Boss,’’ I told him. Then Red Mike told the 
boss that my boys had done a good day’s work, and 
Big Jim said he was glad to hear it, adding, ‘‘Come 
around and see me if there’s any little thing I can do 
for the boys.’’ 

We then marched down to Lavelle’s, where we had 
a riotous time. 

Early in the morning I crept into bed. I was tired 
but could not fall asleep. I spent hours picturing to 
myself the honors, glories and profits that would 
accrue to me from a political career. I saw now very 
clearly how it was that in my city lowbrows ruled in 
high places, and I saw myself with my brains and 
astuteness reaching dizzy heights. ... 


[1791 


Ne Galt 


aia 


FIFTH PERIOD 


Woe unto you lawyers also! for ye load 
men with burdens grievous to be borne, and 
ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one 
of your fingers. 

St. Luxe, 


FIFTH PERIOD 
I 


As I pass it seems as though the very tenements bow 
in deference. The pushcart peddlers humbly tip their 
hats. I am their protector and advisor. The gang 
greets me as boss. Even Shimshin and his tough eggs 
look up to me as their guardian saint. Business men 
greet me, respectfully, as their accelerator in certain 
affairs. Everywhere I meet respect and gratitude. 
The bearded orthodox schule people praise my faithful 
attendance and the way I serve the schule and the poor 
without pay in legal matters. My policy is to put as 
many people as I can under obligation to me. They 
are the straw for the bricks of my political structure. 

So we have come up in the world. I am a lawyer, 
politician, champion of Jewry and member of a dozen 
Jewish lodges, societies and charity organizations. I 
became a Professional Jew in emulation of the success- 
ful Irish politician whose principal capital is being a 
Professional Irishman. ... By this time Philip feels 
himself solidly on his feet as a manufacturer. No one 
knows how much money he has made. At any rate, he 
has the biggest sweatshop in the East Side. We live on 
Canal Street in the upper part of a private house that 
boasts running water, gas light, washtubs and a bath- 
room. 

I begin to be mindful of good repute. I don’t bother 
with Lillie. Sam is courting her in earnest. But Lillie 
doesn’t draw or hold me. It is easy to drop her. But 

[ 183 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Gretel is so different, she seems to be my physical com- 
plement. I cannot give her up. ... And I suggest to 
mother that we get a servant girl. She says she likes 
to keep busy, wouldn’t know what to do with herself 
without housework, and there really was not much to 
do. ... Philip knows what is back of my mind. He 
insists that we get a servant girl. I tell mother that 
Gretel, Weingrad’s maid of all work, is a good worker 
and has agreed to work for us. Mother gives in, as 
usual, afraid to oppose her brother. That evening 
Gretel came, ostensibly to be our servant girl. 

In the morning mother woke early as was her habit. 
She went to Gretel’s little hallroom to call her. She 
was not there. ... 

Philip called to mother to serve breakfast. Gretel 
watched mother, nervously, and then sat down at the 
table. Then I followed, also giving everything a mat- 
ter-of-fact, taken-for-granted air and joined them at 
the table. Mother stood still by the stove looking at us 
in bewilderment and anger. 

Philip again demanded his breakfast. 

Mother spoke in a dry voice. ‘‘What is this fy 

Philip was impatient. He was always the business 
first, business-as-usual man. He snapped: ‘‘Serve 
breakfast and ask questions later.’’ 

We ate in silence. Gretel looked abashed. She was 
never bold. Mother finally burst out, ‘‘It’s a fine serv- 
ant girl you have brought me. Where is she—the 
servant girl? ... Is your mother the servant girl? 
That’s it, I am a servant girl to a Me Ne iniée MAT Obes 
blushing, slipped into her room. . . . Philip told mother 
to be sensible, make the best of it. Philip lit one of my 
cigars and left for his shop. 

[ 184 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Mother came close and looked at me. Her face 
showed that she believed I was outraging every de- 
cency. She wept quietly and asked how I could offer 
my own mother such an insult as to ask her to live 
under the same roof with Gretel—and worse, expect 
her to serve her. I told mother Gretel was not a bad 
woman, and so she asked, ‘‘Then, if she is a good girl 
it is your duty to marry her.’’... SoTI tried to ex- 
plain to her that I had my career to think of, that some 
day I would be able to command a large dowry and the 
daughter of a fine family ... in the meantime... Il 
am but a man, and this arrangement was better than 
chasing around. ... I warned her to mind that to the 
outside world Gretel was our servant girl and nothing 
more. 

Mother cried again. She ended up by saying, ‘‘It 
cannot be that you are my child. You are so unfeel- 
ing—you must be the goat’s child.’”? ... And during 
many years that followed mother never spoke as much 
as one word to Gretel ... not until her craving for 
decency was gratified . . . but that should be told 
later, in its place. 


[ 185 ] 


II 


There is a cloud that comes to darken my world. 
Hsther hides the sun of my greatness. When I am with 
her she makes me feel .. . extinguished . . . sort of 
blotted out. She seems to live in a world wholly apart 
from mine. She teaches school and directs girls’ clubs 
in the little social settlement Barney Finn started 
with his aunt’s money. She trains with the intelli- 
gentsia ... the welt schmerz droop-eyed, the hollow- 
cheeked idealists, the long-winded radicals and the 
hands-raised-in-horror parlor and Pecksniffian reform- 
ers... . Mine is a busy, pushing, pulling, scheming, 
contriving life, but I cannot put Esther out of my mind. 
She is the only defeat in my life . . . and just what I 
want of her I do not know. When I am with her she 
obscures my other world. My eyes are filled with her 
loveliness. Her sentient charm takes me away from 
Meyer Hirsch, ever present before my eyes in a Nar- 
cissus reflection. I quail before her clear, broad under- 
standing ... and to talk with her is a refreshing 
relief from the humdrum rot of my daily doings. . 
And yet I do not for a second think of marrying her. 
I have come to know one thing. Ambition is my undy- 
ing desire. Marriage must socially and financially 
further my ambition. ... It is always just before I 
fall asleep that Esther comes before me. ... I want 
her love, her blind approval of everything Ido... v1 
want to be her supreme being . . . but if Esther should 
come suppliant, adoringly lost in me, then she would 
not be the Esther that wrenches me from myself. ... 

[ 186 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


I came to the little office in the settlement house. T 
was determined to prove to myself that Esther did not 
count. I was going to put her out of my mind, nothing 
would mar the perfect picture I made of myself... . 
Esther was alone. Her willowy form draped in a one- 
pieced dark dress was silhouetted against the white- 
washed wall. Her face had that luminous quality that 
Davie described so long ago—like marble in the first 
light of day. Her beautiful hands, I thought, moved 
towards me as I came into the room. I looked at her 
and knew that the beauty of Esther would ever lurk 
in my being and never let me rest. . . . I meant to 
say just a few passing words, wasn’t going to show 
I cared or was interested ... but I stammered as I 
lost myself in the shadows of her eyes... . I asked 
her to come to the opera. Her face brightened with 
pleasure. Her answer tinkled in my ears like the 
silver bells Davie told about—little silver bells chim- 
ing to the kisses of zephyrs. . . . ‘‘You know, Meyer, 
I have never been to the opera ... you are making 
a dream-wish come true.’’?... J had never been to 
the opera but .. . it would be unlike me to make such 
an admission. 

‘Then let us go tonight—tonight, Hsther.’’... 
Stimulating is her quick assent, and gratifying. Per- 
haps, after all, there is a little place in her heart for 
Meyer Hirsch. ... Impulsively, I speak—surprised 
on the instant at the surrender I was making,—‘‘ You 
don’t know—you know, you feel, you must know—how 
much I enjoy being with you. I can’t tell you why, 
or what it is—it just is... I suppose it is love. 
I love you, I love—’’ . . . Pulling at my sleeve is my 
acquired extra sense, caution, become an apprehensive 

[ 187 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


instinct against self-commitment under any circum- 
stances. Now, there is a shouting in my consciousness: 
hey there! don’t involve yourself! Career. Ambition. 
Greatness. Honor. Wealth. High Places. Look out! 
A dream-stupefied girl. Nowhere: that’s where you 
will get with her. Nowhere. Nowhere. ... But I do 
not heed the warning din. I shut my eyes to the con- 
juring high places. ...I put out my hand. All that 
I held precious—those jewels I had crystallized from 
life—lay in my hand, held out to her. What if Esther 
had taken it . . . would I now be writing a different 
history of Meyer Hirsch? . . . Ignoring my appeal, dis- 
dainful of what I had to proffer, she drew herself away. 
Rather, she shut herself from me. I could hear the 
snap and click of steel fastenings made against me. 
And, as always, the more she resisted me, the more I 
desired her. Denial, difficulties, defeat fired the lust 
of conquest, the sheer call and lure of the hunt. 

‘*Do you know what they are going to sing tonight?”’ 
she asked, pulling on her gloves with jerky tugs. Far 
from calm was Esther. I caught at little clues for 
comfort. Surely, she was disturbed. Had she not 
put on her gloves before her coat and hat? She didn’t 
look at me with her characteristic face-forwardness. 
And her breath came quicker. As she reached near 
me for her hat, I caught her arm, crying, ‘‘Esther, 
Hsther, I wish they would sing a love song for me 
that would reach your heart.’’... A smile lighted 
up her face, and shaped her mouth for a kiss ... so 
I thought ... and her eyes full opened right under 
mine as though to let me see what was working in 
her mind and heart ...as if she herself knew. 
Does anyone ever know, know anything except the pull 

[ 188 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


and response of blood? ... Swiftly, I bent down and 
kissed her. Her lips seemed to melt in my mouth. 
Like a boy, tasting love’s first kiss, passion’s first 
thrill, I was quivering all over, fair to swoon. Startled, 
overwhelmed but for a lightning-illumined moment, 
Esther quickly recovered and moved towards the door. 
I turned, expecting to find her gone, but there she was 
framed in the panel-like doorway, a picture of a life- 
time balancing on the threshold of fate. She had put 
on her hat, a white soft beaver, and, when she uplifted 
her head, it looked like a halo made of little white 
flowers. Her face was soft and white and her lips, 
moist, hurt and crushed-looking. But there were her 
eyes, clear, unflinching, and, to me, like frozen pools 
in the light of a wintry sky. ... I had touched the 
body, and the body yielded, but the spirit, the spirit 
was untouched. I saw it... the spirit could not 
bear with me . . . the spirit which I chose to name— 
puritanism. Anyway, I have something of Esther’s. 
I tasted of her lips, a drop of wine squeezed from the 
rarest passion fruit, so potent, one drop made my 
senses reel. But, in my heart, I am sick of a vague 
disappointment. ...I1 cannot let Esther go. It is 
early. Later, troubled by a prudish reflex, she might 
not want to meet the man who took the swift body- 
surprising kiss. 

I looked at my watch and said, ‘‘Esther, it is a 
little after five. Come uptown with me and we'll find 
a nice restaurant where we’ll have a leisurely dinner 
before the opera. There’s a good deal I want to talk 
about—’’ Quietly, amazed, perhaps, at her own doubt 
as to what to do, she studied me, seeming to probe 
her instincts for a searching light to throw upon me 

[189 ] | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


She took her little bag from the writing stand, looked 
at me with a smiling, composed face and said, unemo- 
tionally, ‘‘Come Meyer, let us go.’? Her eyes were 
clear and unafraid. 

As we tread our way through thronged Chrystie 
Street, which is the narrow mouth to Second Avenue, 
Hsther’s hand nestled on my arm and I was glad of 
the chance to have her close to me. It was Esther who 
suggested that we walk a winding way uptown in and 
around the quaint and quiet streets of Stuyvesant, 
Gramercy and Madison Squares where old New York 
was making its last stand against the push and swarm 
of business and immigration. She liked the reposeful 
byways with their Georgian brick and brown stone 
houses of subdued elegance, fitting grand manner and 
soothing good taste. It is her favorite walk, and a 
key to what she wants. 

Coming upon the wide walks of the boulevard— 
Second Avenue was our grand avenue of the prome- 
nade—Listher took her hand away and strode beside 
me in the independent, upstanding, free-swinging way 
of hers. ‘‘Don’t take your chummy hand away,’’ I 
pleaded. She replaced her hand with a comradely 
taunt—‘‘Come along, little boy, are you afraid of 
getting lost?’’ My exhilaration was that of a school- 
boy on a lark, the exhilaration of camaraderie. For the 
moment my head was clear of the passion-wine. I too, 
skipped along, freed from the dead weight of flesh- 
heavy desire. But, when the hand lying next to my 
ribs began to warm, penetratingly, I tingled.... 
Within I began to boil and rage and anathemize the 
spirit, the sacred spirit that hides behind an ice bar- 
rier and is adamant against my strongest flame. 

[ 190 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


A cheery, familiarly nasal greeting roused me from 
my mood of bitter chagrin. _ 

‘‘Hey there, where are you two rushing off tof 
Wow, where’s the fire?’’ 

I daresay our walk kept time with the charging 
rush and torment of my thoughts. 

We turned around and found we had been seen and 
followed by Hymie Rubin and Harry Wotin, both doc- 
tors now. With them was a tall good-looking young 
man with a weather-tanned face. 

**Give us a chance to say, ‘How do,’ won’t you??? 
demanded Hymie, jocularly. ‘‘Haven’t seen you in 
@ year and a Wednesday.’’... 

“‘Meet Dr. Lionel Crane.’’ ... Where did he get 
the bang-up snobbish name—doesn’t go with his face. 
I mulled with distemper the cognomen—too smart- 
sounding this Lionel Crane to be anything else but 
a cognomen—that ill-fitted his handsome but pro- 
nouncedly Jewish physiognomy. Possibly I was preju- 
diced by an instantaneous shock of jealousy. There 
actually wasn’t anything outstandingly Jewish about 
him except his nose, and that feature, the after-truth to 
tell, was a fine example of a Roman proboscis. ... On 
the spot I disliked him, this Lionel Crane, ne (Harvard 
matriculation) plain, vulgar, Lazarus Cohen. Like 
velvet rubbed the wrong way, sickeningly soft, creepily 
irritating, was his meticulous, modulated speech with 
its heavy Harvard accent. It cloyed. Inconsonant in 
him, not his by right, therefore an affectation, I felt, 
as were his distinguished manners—a nicety of deport- 
ment shaming mine and calling attention to my gau- 
cherie. Anyway, I was ill at ease, upset, mentally tied 
up, so to speak, by a short circuit of my emotional 

[ 191 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL. 


wires. .. . I wanted to drag Esther away. Here was 
a cross-current, Dr. Lionel Crane, whom I feared. .. . 
**On a visit to New York... . Looking around... 
tremendously interested .. . gripping developments 
... growing into a national problem .. . big field. ... 
Yes . . . might stay on. No; wasn’t going in for 
straight medicine. Nor for surgery. Something new.’’ 
... Superior something or other. Very. Very. 
Superior. . . . He didn’t say it—but his bearing’s im- 
press brings out his superiority. . . . Perplexing, 
whatever it is. . . . ‘‘Race psychopathology. Serious. 
Very. Race Psychopathology.’’ . . . What aname for 
—the Jewish Problem! .... ‘‘Yes: in America... 
Certain of it. Bound to spring up, spread like a pesti- 
lence, the Jewish Question. ...’’ I catch snips of 
talk, snatches of an idea. I don’t like this overbearing 
fop in his English cut clothes, his simple cane, pince- 
nez with its thin little black streamer disappearing 
somewhere in his collar, his finesse, ease, superiority 
and self-command. I see him taking Esther away from 
me, probably appeals to her like a Gramercy Square 
house. She bends, absorbed, interested, to his talk, 
his personality. 

At last relief comes when Hymie breaks in with a 
jest. He has turned out to be a rotund little man, sug- 
gesting a plump boy despite the disguise of a spade 
beard. ‘‘How do you like my whiskers, Esther? Go- 
ing to let them grow long enough to hide my knock 
knees. ’’ 

‘You look terribly dignified and doctorish,’’ vouches 
Esther, merrily. 

‘‘Raised the hirsute thingamajig out of self-defense. 

[ 192 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Countenance too cherubic. Can’t look innocent and 
be a doctor. Got to look like a doctor to be one.’’ 

Even sombre-visaged Harry jokes about the beard. 
‘‘Doctors,’’ says he, ‘‘owe a duty to the germs who 
give them so much business. When they chase the 
germs out of the patient it’s only fair that they pro- 
vide them a convenient hiding place. That’s why doc- 
tors wear beards.’’ 

‘“‘T’m a doctor all right, here’s the Van Dyke to prove 
it.’? So Hymie prattled away, saying he feels like a 
boy on the first day of vacation. He has just ended his 
long internship in a maternity hospital, and was plan- 
ning to take a part of Harry’s so-called office, two bare 
rooms with the minimum of doctoral contraptions to 
impress patients. How can a man be a doctor without 
imposing cabinets of instruments, a library-like sitting 
room, pictures, hangings, medicinal odors and the hush 
of teetering agony—without even a suggestion of the 
traditional doctor’s office? No wonder Harry can’t 
make a start. He knows babies and wants to treat 
them. But when the mothers come to his stark office, 
where there is nothing but conscientiousness and scien- 
tific knowledge, which they can’t see, they are appalled. 
He can’t be a good doctor, they reason. He has noth- 
ing himself. Here is Harry. His ambition reached 
after years of diligent study and racking midnight toil 
on knee pants. He has had his dingy Forsythe Street 
office open two years, hardly ever gets a paying patient, 
and looks as shabby and starved out as ever. LHivery- 
body wonders how he gets along. Does he still make 
knee pants during the secret hours of the night? I 
daresay, if his mother didn’t fetch him an occasional 
meal he would starve to death. And he muddles on,— - 

[ 193 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the idealist; and what is he getting, I gloat, with and 
for his idealism—nothing! He stumbles on because he 
is dream-stupefied. Why doesn’t he get wise to him- 
self and know the world he’s living in, the world he’s 
got to contend with? He knows a doctor without money 
can make his start in only one of two ways, marry a 
rich girl to tide him over the first getting-acquainted 
period, or perform abortions. I suggested a few off 
color cases to Harry, but he turned from them in hor- 
ror. Just dream-stupefied. I can’t make out Harry 
at all. There’s his brother, a clever pickpocket who 
has so grown in the esteem of the light-fingered fra- 
ternity that they have raised his rating from Archie 
the Gun to Archie the Cannon. 

‘Tomorrow I begin the practice of medicine. Look 
me up in the swell doctors’ row on Forsythe Street. 
Don’t fall over the garbage cans and don’t trip over 
the tomcats. Forsythe Street has more tomcats than 
any other place in the world.”’ 

‘‘My congratulations and best wishes, Dr. Rubin,’’ 
Esther shakes his chubby hand. 

‘Good luck to you, Hymie,’’ I mumble. 

‘‘Thanks, Esther. Much obliged, Meyer. I need 
good wishes—and patients. I bet Harry is glad to 
have company. Won’t be so tough and lonely now 
that he’ll have someone else starving alongside of 
him. ...’? Weall laughed. Even Harry. Hymie is 
droll even when he doesn’t say anything that’s intrinsi- 
cally funny. But the shadow of a cloud settles on 
Harry’s face when Hymie’s jocularity touches a sensi- 
tive spot. 

‘*The only way to make a start as a doctor is to get 
a rich father-in-law. Meyer, old boy, find me a shidach 

[ 194] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


(a match) with a dowry big enough to fit up a classy 
office and carry me along the first five years.’’ 

Harry is thinking of his Fanny Weingrad, whom, 
people say, he wants to marry for her father’s 
money. . . . Now, Dr. Crane swings the talk into a 
serious channel. 

‘‘Dr, Rubin, there’s a great truth lurking in your 
jest. The State should endow a physician the first five 
years of his practice.’’ 

Whereupon another discussion starts on that Second 
‘Avenue corner, and it seems to me as I sweep my eyes 
up and down the street that Second Avenue is dotted 
with little groups of Discussionists. Just when I have 
decided that they would rather talk than eat, Hymie, 
bubbling over in his festive mood, asks, ‘‘Say, when 
do we eat?”’ 

There is no getting away from ebullient Hymie, who 
is like a college lad on a spree. So I have plenty of 
company at the dinner I had planned for Esther 
and myself, for confidings and communings, for the 
pleasure of having her alone, near me, before my 
eager eyes. 

Hymie takes us to a foggy goulash joint, a Hun- 
garian cellar restaurant on St. Marks Place, just off 
Second Avenue. Everybody is smoking in the poorly 
ventilated place, which accounts for the fog. My im- 
pression is of a misty sea with bobbing heads as buoys 
and waving hands as sails; laden schooners, waiters, 
carrying remarkable numbers of dishes in both arms, 
eruise through the aisle-channels; and one of these 
waiters takes us in tow and gives us a crowded berth 
at a small table in a corner. The unceasing talk is like 
the wash of the tide around our wharf.... ‘‘Best 

(195 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


goulash in the world, and oh boy! their schnitzels are 
schnitzels.’? Hymie is making amends for the stuffy, 
noisy surroundings. ‘‘And you can get real Pilsener 
and Culmbacher and pischinger torte and French pan- 
cakes @ la Wein, Sauerkraut and Furters, and the 
Sauerkraut—sweet as the dew on the morning’s rose.”? 
The way he ecstasized over the dishes awakened gusta- 
tory sensations. The proprietor, a Bohemian, round 
as one of his kegs of native beer, came to shake hands 
with Herr Doktor, and listened delightedly to the 
praise of his cookery. 

‘“‘T will serve you myself,’?? he announced with 
princely grandeur. He showed us further honor by 
ordering a timidly hovering omnibus boy to spread a 
clean tablecloth and bring his proprietorship’s per- 
sonal dinner service. ... Although it was a good din- 
ner in every respect, Dr. Harry Wotin and I sat 
through it in moody silence. I know Harry is thinking 
of Fanny Weingrad, whom he may count as lost to him, 
for next week she is to be married to a business man 
of her father’s choosing. 

Shammos Mendel Gerditsky was the shadchan 
(marriage broker) who arranged the match. The 
shammos supplements his meager earnings as beadle 
by being a matrimonial commission merchant, and a 
peddler of ritual wines. This morning the shammos 
had laid before me the details of the affair, as he 
wanted to sue Weingrad, who questioned the amount 
of his commission for finding a desirable husband for 
his daughter. I called in Weingrad and effected a 
settlement. The shammos, who liked Harry, said it 
was a sad affair that would mend itself. No one, in his 

[ 196 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


opinion, ever died of love. Dying of love was a grand« 
mother’s tale. Yet in his own way he felt sorry for 
poor Hannah, who looked woebegone with her puffed 
fat face soiled and distorted with crying. She was 
short and big-bodied and pined for her spavined- 
looking, pinched-faced schnorrer doctor. The shammos 
praised her for a dutiful daughter. She would make 
the sensible marriage, though her heart wasn’t in it, 
just to please her parents. 

‘‘Tt will mend itself, no one need fret, it will mend 
itself,’’ Gerditsky reiterated, but added, a little wist- 
fully, ‘‘Harry is a dear young man, but no one seems 
to see it.’’? . .. So Harry sits brooding over his lost 
Fanny, and I note with growing dismay that Esther 
and Dr. Crane are hitting it off like long lost, joyously 
restored kindred spirits. 

With twinkling eyes, twitting lips, between bites and 
munching mouthfuls, Hymie darts from table to table 
greeting fellow students; young physicians; acquaint- 
ances of the free guild of radical-minded; young old 
men, keen Discussionists of welt pohtik; old young men 
who are grayed and aged by their first discoveries of 
the grim and harsh realities of life; and the regular 
coffee-house hounds, who had transplanted themselves 
from the amiable idleness of Vienna, Budapest, 
Prague and Berlin to a similar ground and atmosphere 
in the new world, who live on remittances, borrowings, 
eard-playing, peddling of pawn tickets, cleaning soiled 
cards and reselling them, doing any odd little what not, 
except work: a motley, queer, happy-go-lucky collec- 
tion of humanity. : 

I heed Crane’s elegant enunciation. . . . There has 
been a lively debate between him and Esther. He says, 

P1973) 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘¢Please do not deceive yourself.’? ... She has just 
declared that the Jewish question will simply wither 
away in the free, pure air of America. . . . But Crane 


counters deftly, opening deeper and deeper the flesh of 
the subject with swift, knowing scalpel-thrusts. 

‘<The Jews will create a Jewish Question in America 
as long as they cling to their bizarre Jewishness. .. . 
What calls immediate, curious attention to the 
Jews ... his outlandish ways and attire—his beards 
and ear-locks. . . . He is always the repellent for- 
eigner awakening unpleasant associations of the his- 
torically misrepresented Jew ... his slovenly, baggy 
clothes, or his overdressed, bejewelled, flashy appear- 
ance; his blatancy and vulgarity . . . antipathetic 
assertiveness ... his maddening infallible belief in 
himself as being better, wiser, cleaner, more moral, 
shrewder, greater; the chosen of the One and Only 
God, worshiped in the One and Only true way—his 
way ... his contempt of all others, their ways, living, 
believing, stupidity . . . and he becomes hateful, 
unbearable, undesirable. . . . Are you shocked— 
angered——— But those are the things we have been 
letting the outside world see. Here in America the Jew 
can show that he is something else than the marked, 
harried creature he seems . . . or the grasping, merci- 
less, self-centred Shylock of popular imagination. . . 
Now in America the Professional Jews stir up rum- 
puses, alarms, furors over every fancied grievance, 
insult and reflection. They focus a spotlight upon the 
Jews. Their self-righteous rantings in the circulation- 
seeking press, in pulpits, on the political stump, in mass 
meetings and legislative halls, do more to raise up the 
spectre of the Jewish question in America than all the 

[198 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


sneers, insinuations and charges of the rabid Anti- 
Semites. . . . The Professional Jew is making his 
people more and more a delicate political problem. He 
forbids all criticism. 

‘¢ And that is what we need here—criticism, and more 
criticism from within—a self-consciousness of short- 
comings. . . . But who dares criticize the Jews for 
resorting in America to Old World ways of gaining a 
livelihood? Necessary, the last resorts of a hampered, 
hemmed in people, and, so, we understand that they 
were excusable—in the Old World. But here, in Amer- 
ica, shall we condone usury, faginism, receiving stolen 
goods, corrupting officials, procuring, brothel-keeping, 
sharp-dealing, legitimatizing the cheating and over- 
charging of Gentiles, labor-sweating? ... And they 
are but a handful comparatively, this riffraff, this scum 
of the wretched, cynical Continental civilization. 

‘‘Because the Professional Jews won’t permit criti- 
cism and house-cleaning this handful of riffraff is made 
representative of the great population of poverty- 
stricken, hard-working, clean-living, simple, law-abid- 
ing Jews. .. . So they stifle criticism, these Profes- 
sional Jews who are doing nothing but working on 
their lucrative jobs of appealing to the racial vanity 
of their people. . . . What if the criticism pierces like 
the probing, cleansing lancet, and burns and pains 
like antiseptic poured on festering sores? . . . The 
Jews fe 

Why are there tears in Harry’s eyes? Hymie has 
taken his seat at the table and listens, soberly. And 
Esther, well, her eyes have not been off his face for 
even a fleeting, wavering second. Crane’s face is com- 
posed; his eyes have a far-away look, as though pass- 

[ 199 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND J OWL 


ing over a resumé of what he has said. The coffee and 
French pancakes are served and we eat in silence. 
After the table is cleared we sit without speaking, 
looking at Crane, expecting the tank to fill and again 
spill cascades of ideas. In me there is a rising, per- 
sonal anger. I want to retort, choke him with strong 
patriotic answers. But my wires are crossed. I can’t 
function. . . . Like the far-away boom of the surf, 
crawling, menacing, ominous .. . Crane’s pronuncia- 
mento. ... 

‘The Jews . . . only the Jews themselves . . . can 
solve the Jewish Question. But it has been made a 
closed subject. Its door has become a trap. He who 
ventures to open it is caught and crushed in the jaws 
of the guardian dogs of Jewry, the Professional Jews. 
They call themselves the protectors of their people. 
But in reality they are the jailors of their people, keep- 
ing them from enlightenment and self-liberation. Un- 
discussable—the unwritten law of the Professiona] 
Jew. Non-discussable. The Jew is non-discussable, a 
forbidden subject. 

‘But I will discuss it. I will take the sick ego of my 
people to the clinic. I know I will be called the enemy 
of my people, hounded, cursed, spat upon, disowned 
even by my own family, ridiculed, called a renegade, 
turn-coat, the paid tool of the Anti-Semites .. . excori- 
ated .. . left without peace. . . . But I have got to go 
ahead, see ahead. ... I will take the sick ego of my 
people to the clinic.’’ 

Crane lights a cigarette. I think that here is my 
chance to call a halt and remind Esther that she wants 
to walk. But Esther says, ‘‘Please, don’t stop, Dr. 
Crane.’’ 

[ 200 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


_ “Yes, yes, go on,’’ urges Harry in a dry voice, finger- 
ing his throat; while Hymie urges him to get it off his 
chest. 

- Crane smiles at Hymie and then looks into Esther’s 
eyes. Ido not seem to exist... . 

‘‘There is no question of religion. .. . Worship as 
you please, when and where you please. But get rid 
of the foul fungus of the Ghetto. If you do not become 
an integral, euphonious part of the American nation 
you will again isolate yourself and stand out yellow- 
badged among the people of the New World... 
again ... alien, wandering, strange figures .. . again 
... distrust, dislike, persecution. ... The Jew must 
take himself in hand, see himself as the world sees 
him. Face historical facts. Face scientific truths. 
Face medical and pathological findings. Treat him- 
self. . . . I know when the outsider criticizes the Jew, 
the Jew withdraws behind the ramparts of his Ghetto 
and his religion, throws himself blindly into his con- 
soling faith, a faith that has given our race a paranoiac 
tendency, the faith that he is God’s Chosen People... . 
God will deliver His Chosen People from the oppres- 
sors and smite the oppressors . . . and His Chosen 
People will rule the world ... some day . . . some 
day... . We are hysterical, overwrought, high-strung 
... we need the sedative of repose, selflessness. ... We 
are neurasthenics ... look at the greater ratio of insan- 
ity and feeblemindedness among our people. ... We 
suffer from racial paranoia... believe in our racial 
supremacy, assert it, boast it; flaunt it in all our 
actions. .. . There has been too much inbreeding in 
the fastnesses of the Ghetto, so there are insanity and 
feeblemindedness, and diabetes. ... I know the Jew 

[ 201 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


has been forced to use his brain-machine until it is 
jolted out of gear ... that living in dread and fear 
of the oppressor has made us hysterical and neuras- 
thenic ... but herein America .. . itis different... 
should be different . . . we can make it different. .. . 
Tear down the walls, let out the pent-up people to 
mingle and mix. Let intermarriage bring in the saving 
tonic of new blood. . . . End the isolation a 

I don’t know how much longer he would have con- 
tinued. I looked at my watch and reminded Esther 
that we would be late. We bade them good-bye, hur- 
riedly, and Esther asked Dr. Crane to visit Finn’s 
social settlement. ... She wanted to see more of him, 
hear more of his crazy race psychopathology. 

I called a cab, and we rode uptown without talking. 
I saw Esther was lost in thought and it seemed to me 
that Crane had vastly widened the distance between us. 

I got tickets for the little balcony under the gallery. 
Hardly had we taken our seats than the lights went out 
and the orchestra showed dimly beneath the footlights. 
The overture began ... Aida. . . . I did not hear the 
music. . . . I could feel only that Esther, who sat next 
to me, was in spirit far removed from me. I had 
touched her hand and she pulled it away sharply. ... 
For a moment I thought I could fling myself from the 
balcony. . . . But egotism came to my rescue. I sat 
dreaming through the music, carried away by the 
imaginings of the High Places I would reach... . 
Esther would be an impediment. . . . She would make 
me dream-stupefied. . . . I don’t remember what 
Esther said. . . . I kept my eyes towards the High 
Places. . . . The odor of perfumed warm bodies rose 
to my nostrils. I saw the white circle of shoulders in 

[ 202 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the boxes, and I told myself I would sit in the white 
circle, honored, sought after, charmed, loved .. - 
voluptuously happy. 

I left Esther at her door, bade her a crisp good night, 
walked vigorously to my home and ran up the stairs. 
I was running away from the pull of Esther. 

I found Gretel waiting up for me. 


{ 208 J 


IIT 


HIRSCH & FREUND 
Counsellors at Law 


Thus read the large gilt letters on the expansive 
plate-glass window of the store in which we make our 
Offices. And a Swinging yellow and black sign, high 
above the door, to catch the roving eyes from all points, 
is more to the point. It bears a one-word legend, in 
three languages, English, Yiddish and Russian, black 
gaping out of yellow: 


LAWYER 


Mine has been a bad night. My mood is in the throes 
of misgiving. Here is my office. But yesterday, I 
pridefully beheld it, and today, I see it shamefacedly 
as a pirates’ ship. . . . I am in terror of the dream- 
stupefied. I have breathed the scents of their poppy 
fields. 

Our pirate ship, flying its skull and bones and plague 
colors, lay, so to speak, at the mouth of the lagoon. 
Across the way is the Essex Market Courthouse. All 
vessels in distress, alimp, leaky, in tow, must pass our 
runners and steerers, pilots for the predatory crew of 
Hirsch & Freund, who are adept and daring with 
the grappling irons, and perfect ferrets for smelling 
out worth-while plunder. 

Little groups of men and women wait in front of our 
office. They are the overflow of our already filled to 
capacity sitting room. People like to patronize a 

[ 204 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


crowded shop. It is the herd instinct, the fear to be 
alone, act alone; the fear to try the new. . . . Deferen- 
tial good mornings, stepping back and making way, 
raising of hats, eager, solicitous glances, servile hold- 
ing out of hands, and awed whispers of ‘‘here he 
comes,’ are balm to my sick, drooping spirit. I pass 
through the congested sitting room. It is like being 
bathed with healing oils. . . . I plunge into a sea of 
troubles, other people’s troubles, and peace comes to 
my soul. My brain clears. The poppy scents are dis- 
sipated. Iam again Meyer Hirsch. 

The little glazed door, which connects Maxie’s office 
with mine, opens an inch. I get rid of the client who 
has my ear. I shut my outer door with a bang by way 
of signal to Maxie that the coast is clear. Immediately 
Maxie enters, followed by a stalwart, lumbering fellow 
with an inflamed face. . . . ‘‘Judge Duffy, I want 
you to meet my partner, Meyer Hirsch, a regular 
feller.’’? ... ‘‘Glad to know you, Mr. Hirsch.”’... 
A few minutes of small, awkward talk, and then His 
Honor departs. . . . Maxie smiles. He looks like a cat 
laughing in his whiskers as he remarks, ‘‘That’s my 
fifth one. Laying the hooks and lines. ... Well, bread 
on water, hey Mike? ... Just took up Duffy’s notes 
for two thousand. Told him not to worry about them. | 
Pay when convenient. You know, when convenient. 
Won’t bother me if he never pays.’’ ... Chuckling, 
Maxie makes an entry in a small black book which he 
has taken from his vest pocket. ... ‘‘Charged it off 
to profit and loss.’’ . . . I simply grin. Maxie’s facial 
expression is an attempt at cuteness. It is very un- 
becoming. But I did not pick my partner for good 
looks. He is viciously clever, but loyal and above- 

[ 205 j 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


board with me. I keep the political irons hot, fix the 
cops, do all the backing and filling in connection with 
the criminal cases. I split fees with court clerks, 
attendants, keepers, detectives, policemen, their supe- 
riors, saloonkeepers—anybody who will bring us cases. 
I take care of the boys all the way down the line from 
the judge on the bench to the bootblack in the criminal 
courts’ hallway. Maxie’s province is the civil courts, 
and his skill and subtlety as a cross-examiner along 
new lines have already earned him a reputation. But 
Maxie knows that legal knowledge only, on the part of 
a lawyer, even plus cleverness and preparation—en- 
titles a lawyer to starve in New York courts. So he 
keeps his hand in the political grab-bag and is a note 
broker; only judges’ notes. Like most of the judges, 
Judge Duffy was heavily in debt—in the beginning of 
his term. . . . So it was in that hurly-burly time of 
New York’s nineties: A nomination or appointment 
to judgeship cost a stated sum; judgeships had their 
regular scale of prices. The market price for a 
Supreme Court place was $35,000. The average salary 
for the term fixed the price for the job. . . . Maxie’s 
system was simple. All he wanted was the good will 
of the jurist. He did not ask any outright preference 
from the finicky and the fourflushers, just wanted the 
shade on his side. Soon the judges found it was safe 
to rule in his.favor. For Maxie was not crude. He 
came into court prepared, bristling with facts, 
a-sparkle with decisions, and pointed like a porcu- 
pine with technicalities. First, he had won the grati- 
tude of the judges, and then he proceeded to exact 
their respect for a thoroughly and cleverly prepared 
case—which gave them an essential sense of security. 
[ 206 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


So the judge did not have to fear making a raw deci- 
sion, and incur a rebuking reversal. Maxie saw to it 
that the case was punched full of loopholes. The 
judges liked him. He did not throw the full brunt upon 
them. He steered the case into a safe channel, tied it 
up in such a way that no one knew where it started or 
where it should land. Presently there circulated one of 
those quietly notorious facts that Maxie even wrote the 
decisions for the judges, wherein you learn how Maxie 
created a good many legal precedents—the secret 
twists of which he alone knew. . . . In time, when a big 
matter was broached to a judge, he feared to move 
unless Maxie was taken in as trial counsel. Then the 
Judge felt he was safe in throwing the case. ... So, 
the notes bore fruits of perennial bloom. Judges 
became our steerers. 

Steadily, with unremitting purposefulness, I was 
creating a political organization that I could call my 
own, an organization that would make me a factor in 
politics. I organized the pushcart peddlers into a Pro- 
tective Association. In batches of four and five, some- 
times as many as ten, I had them sworn in as citizens. 
My first move was to stop the petty police graft which 
extorted a quarter a day from each peddler. The ped- 
dlers began to hold up their heads. Then I pointed 
out that too many people were coming in as peddlers. 
So I had an ordinance passed making it unlawful to 
peddle without a license, and only citizens with pull 
could get licenses. All the peddlers flocked into the 
Protective Association, became citizens, and saw it was 
good business to limit the number of competitors. The 
Peddlers’ Protective Association voted me a large 
yearly retainer. My principal service to them was to 

[ 207 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


stop the constant, annoying and expensive interference 
by the police, settling squabbles over profitable spots, 
opening up new streets to peddlers’ stands, stopping 
petty thievery by buying off the leaders of the gangs, 
who also gave the peddlers protection from marauding 
Irish gangs. The peddlers’ vote was mine, solidly, 
could be counted as a unit. Big Jim Hallorhan 
acknowledged my good services, and I asked him a 
favor for the boys. I wanted to keep the good will of 
Shimshin and his gang, as well as the unswerving sup- 
port of Boolkie and his constantly renewed ranks. 
There was keen competition for the pickpocket privi- 
lege of the Brooklyn Bridge terminal, where swirling, 
pushing crowds made pocket-picking easy and lucra- 
tive. Detectives were assigned to see that the regularly 
designated pickpockets operated without interference 
and to keep out poachers from this fine game preserve. 
Big Jim awarded the Brooklyn Bridge concession to 
my district. I divided it among four pickpockets, two 
from Shimshin’s gang and two from Boolkie’s, which 
gave the leaders a good income. A certain percentage 
of the pickings went to the guardian detectives and to 
the police inspector in charge of the Bridge district. 

By this time the tough babies, who were quite grown 
up, became the gangsters’ meal tickets. They were 
sent out on the streets. It was a police privilege for 
girls to solicit on certain busy highways. If you were 
not in right, your girl was arrested and kept from the 
best flesh marts. So I saw to it that my boys’ girls 
were unmolested, collected the police tribute from them 
and gave it to the local inspector of police, who found 
it convenient to have me do his collecting. I never 
dealt with the girls. I saw to it that Boolkie and Shim- 

[ 208 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


shin took up the allotted tolls and brought them in 
promptly. 

So it came about that I became the attorney for the 
flesh brokers, the procurers and resort keepers. To 
keep up a certain kind of police appearance, to quiet 
the grumblings of the press and reformers, I arranged 
with the pimps, procurers, girls, and houses ‘‘to stand 
for a raid,’’ which meant submitting to a spectacular 
alleged police clean-up, which for a few days filled the 
newspapers and the courts and was soon forgotten. 
The court cases were hushed up. And then business 
continued as usual at the old stands. As Big Jim said, 
New York is a nine-day town. 

T talked over Allen Street with Big Jim and Little 
Tom, the former’s cousin, who was responsible for my 
district. The reformers were making a fearful stew 
over Allen Street. It was the crudest of all bawdy- 
house streets. We decided that Allen Street should 
shift to other quarters. I knew the sentiments of my 
congregation and the Peddlers’ Association. They did 
not want brothels so near their homes and children. 
I thought we could make political capital by making a 
sensational raid on Allen Street and having it appear 
that our political party without police aid broke up the 
vile nuisance. Jim and Tom saw the point. They 
assigned the nearby district captains to report to me 
with their strong-arm men. We gave the houses two 
weeks’ time in which to make other arrangements, and 
advised them of the date of the clean-up. I then went 
about stirring up the congregation and the Peddlers’ 
Association, telling them how indignant Big Jim and 
Little Tom were when I laid before them the extent of 
the abuse. I raised a hue and cry, a battle slogan, 

f 209 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘‘Clean up Allen Street; clean up Allen Street.’? Bool- 
kie and Shimshin, two big procurers, were my assist- 
ants on the day of the clean-up. We marched into 
Allen Street like virtue incarnate, drove the women 
from the houses, threw furniture in the street, and in 
a short hour Allen Street was no more a redlight 
haunt. The landlords were quite broken-hearted, but 
everybody else was satisfied, the newspapers playing 
up and applauding the event. I was the head and cen- 
ter of the publicity, and got the lion’s share of credit 
and esteem. Next election we swept the district as it 
never was swept before. I named the candidates for 
the State Assembly and the City Board of Aldermen. 
They were my straw men, Moritz Krulewitch and Her- 
mann Weisbrod. But ten years ago they were raw im- 
migrants. Having a constitutional dislike for manual 
labor—back home they were the young sons of the 
trader class—and having adaptable personalities, they 
soon got onto the Professional Jew game. ‘They, 
ostensibly, were insurance brokers and adjusters, 
notary publics and self-sacrificing executives of the 
Roumanian and Polish Jewish lodges and societies. 
So when the election came, their respective com- 
patriots, the Roumanian and Polish Jews, joyfully 
voted for Krulewitch and Weisbrod, holding it a per- 
sonal honor in having their lodge members named for 
official distinction. Krulewitch and Weisbrod knew 
how to hold their jobs. In all their speeches they 
unfailingly referred to me as the Shield of Israel in 
America; they busied themselves doing petty favors 
for their constituents, protesting against the slightest 
sign of anti-semitism in schools, parks, public places, 
newspapers, office-holders and especially in the utter- 
[ 210 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


ances of their immediate political opponents. They 
would call upon me, leading sheep-like committees, and 
ask me as the Leader of My Oppressed People in 
America to end this or that discrimination. They per- 
formed their legislative duties with punctilious atten- 
tion to the party’s orders. In short, their conduct 
assured them a steady political future in New York, 
and a rise from poverty to riches. Hymie Rubin, who 
was developing into an amiable philosophical anarchist 
with a weakness for puns, called the progress of my 
office-secking protegés, ‘‘From Wretches to Riches.’’ 
Hymie could safely joke about everybody, for every- 
body’s wife came to be his patient. Hymie began by 
having countless maternity cases and no fees, but this 
unceasing experience made him in time one of Amer- 
ica’s greatest and best paid obstetricians. When a 
woman attaches herself to a doctor she makes him 
her god. 

Again we re-elected our nominee for Congress, 
Joseph Goodman, a high officer of a national Jewish 
fraternal and protective order. He held tenaciously 
to the Congressional job by making only one speech at 
each term of Congress. Goodman made his one speech 
and then devoted himself to his lodge and other duties. 
In time this speech became an Hast Side classic: our 
best heads had concocted it. It was a hair-raising 
recital of the horrors of Jewish persecution in Russia 
that splashed vitriolic denunciations upon the T'sar and 
his government as being officially responsible for the 
pogroms, and ended with an hysterical plea to 
the American government to sever relations with the 
Tsar’s government until the massacres were stopped. 
His campaign orations gave him no troubles of com- 

f 211 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


position. He simply repeated his Congressional speech. 
Goodman’s Socialist opponent was Avrum Toledo. 
Avrum made the mistake an honest man always makes, 
tells the truth as he understands it. He ridiculed Good- 
man and suggested another cure for pogroms. He was 
nearly lynched. He must be fearless or foolish to 
think that he could make the Jews believe, even for a 
moment, that they themselves, in the slightest degree, 
may be responsible for pogroms. It was not so much 
what Avrum had said, but what we had twisted his 
words into, that made trouble for the Socialist Party, 
which, we said, was responsible for Avrum’s views... . 
Avrum had said that Jewish ways made it easy for the 
Russian agents-provocateur to inflame the peasants 
against the Jews. That the peasants are naturally 
irritated and resentful when they find themselves sys- 
tematically cheated and impoverished by the wily 
Jewish traders, who seem, in their simple minds, to 
rob them with the devil’s cunning. When fired with 
vodka and wild reports, and religious fury, the resent- 
ment is easily fanned into hatred. He did not say that 
the Jews as a whole cheated the peasant and deserved 
his resentment, but accused the trader and money- 
lender classes. 

He said: ‘‘Let us look with clear eyes and calm 
brains at the Russian pogrom question. We know the 
Government inspires the outrages. We know the Gov- 
ernment uses the violence and pillaging as the means 
of letting off the people’s steam, which otherwise might 
be directed against their rotten government. Is that 
all that concerns us? How about the people whom it is 
80 easy to incite against our people? Have we wronged 
them in any way? Where is our fault, in what way do 

[ 212 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


we help along the happening of pogroms! I beg for 
a little common sense among ourselves, a few home 
remedies, which will do more than all the impassioned 
speeches in the Halls of Congress, speeches that are 
used merely as bait to catch your votes. I say it will 
not be such a simple matter for the Tsar’s government 
to stir up pogroms when we have won the good-will, 
trust and affection of our Gentile neighbors. If they 
have every reason to respect and love us, how then can 
they be made to hate and destroy us? So itis up to us 
to stop the abuses of the traders and money-lenders. 
‘“We must tell our people that these traders and 
money-lenders, the leaders and controllers of our 
community, this minority of profit-takers, are the root- 
causes of the pogroms. Let us understand the Russian 
peasant’s mental operations. Is it not easy to be in- 
cited against the persons who have been systematically 
wronging you? Stop the wrong, the first wrong, and 
you will end the ultimate wrong. Life is reproductive. 
Wrong begets wrong. Hate begets hate. Love will 
beget a happy family. . . . In time the Russian govern- 
ment, unable to instigate the peasantry, will have to 
come out in the open. They will have to use troops 
to massacre the Jews. The world will ring out in pro- 
test against such savagery. Butchery, wearing official 
garb, attacking a peaceful, unoffending people, will 
turn the world against Russia. She will be a pariah 
wherever there is public opinion. It will be savagery 
without excuse, a savagery stamped with the seal of 
the Russian bureaucracy, and then we can make a 
powerful appeal to the world’s sympathy and inter- 
vention. How different it will be when the Jews come 
to the world with clean hands and clear consciences! 
[ 213 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


No longer will the Russian government shrug its shoul- 
ders and say, smugly, ‘the pogroms are the anger of 
the people against the abuses of the Jews.’ ”’ 

There was the devil to pay. Even the Socialists 
turned upon Avrum. They said he was a Spanish Jew 
and did not feel for the Russian Jews, and was like his 
German ilk in his dislike and contempt for his 
unfortunate brethren in the Pale. . . . Scratch a 
Socialist—the espouser of the brotherhood of inter- 
nationalism—and you will find a rabid nationalist. ... 
No man can escape the prejudices and predilections 
of his blood nor cleanse himself of the pitch of his 
environment. 

Avrum, college graduate, was a garment worker, a 
plain operator at the machine. And, now, what did it 
avail him to have sacrificed his personal career to be- 
come one in suffering and understanding with the slave 
to the needle? One indiscretion, one scratch, had 
angered the nationalistic people. How dare he inti- 
mate that the Russ—or Pole—Jews themselves may 
even in a part be responsible for the pogroms? Why, 
man, in other words, he was justifying—justifying 
pogroms! 

All the explanations his friends tried to make 
incensed them more. They hated him for a Span- 
lard. ... But Avrum smiled and plodded on in the 
ranks of the thin, straggly line of unionists. Before 
long he found it harder and harder to get a job as it 
became known that he was a labor agitator, a wild- 
eyed Socialist who could even justify pogroms. Yet 
Avrum carried on. If he was hurt, he did not let on; 
if it shook his faith in the people’s ability to carry out 
Socialism, he showed it in an increasing demand upon 

[ 214 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


educational programs for the workers. First he 
wanted to prepare their minds, then he wanted to pre- 
pare their hearts, after which he saw the Utopian 
millennium. 

Sometimes he went to the extreme folly of sincerity. 
He tried to convert the bosses to unionism. He said 
an improved standard of living and working conditions 
would make the workers more efficient. He appealed 
to their interest, then he tried to touch their hearts. 
There was a twinkle in his eyes and a smile of self- 
amusement on his face, or he might have been taken 
for stark crazy, when he said to the bosses :—‘‘ You are 
keeping out the light of a great happiness from your 
lives. The greatest happiness is to see everyone 
around you happy. For how can you be happy if even 
one of your fellowmen is in need and distress??? 

And they answered his smile and gave him the 
sack. .. . After a while only Philip would employ him. 
Philip said he did not fear his influence in his shop. 
No one could organize his shop. The minute a man 
joined the union he fired him. And there were ten 
greenhorns ready and eager to take his place. Philip 
enjoyed Avrum’s talk, saying it was a fine example of 
the self-deluded vaporings of the dream-stupefied. 

Fancy my surprise when Philip, who never took more 
than five minutes for lunch, and thereby gave himself 
a life-time of stomach trouble, called at my office and 
asked Maxie and me to take lunch with him in a quiet 
place where we could talk. At lunch Philip announced 
he wanted our advice on how the unions could com- 
pletely stop work in all shops and for once really win 
astrike.... 

Maxie taunted him, ‘‘Getting afraid of the unions? 

[ 215 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Worrying if they can win. Want to know when to hop 
off the fence. . . .”? But soon Philip disclosed that he 
had a deeper purpose. He confused us for a time 
when he seemed to insist that he wanted the unions to 
paralyze all the shops for a season. 

But we got an inkling when he said, ‘‘Except my 
shop. I want my shop to work in full blast—as a union 
shop, a union shop while it suits my purpose.’’ 

Maxie took him in hand with questions. He brought 
out that Philip wanted to expand his business, was 
ready for bigger, better business. He wanted to steal 
the best accounts in the country from the long-estab- 
lished German-Jewish concerns. If he could stop their 
production, completely, for one season, he could make 
an entering wedge that never could be dislodged. He 
had several things up his sleeve. He had standardized 
the difficult short stouts, he could fit any man with a 
ready-made suit better than a custom tailor. He could 
undersell his competitors. He had stolen the best 
styles, pippins, sure-sellers. He wanted to spring his 
lines on the big accounts of the country when they had 
to listen to him. He needed one season to convince 
them. 

Maxie hit right at the heart of the matter. ‘‘How 
do you manufacturers always manage to beat the 
unions?”? 

Philip told him that when the unionized workers quit 
there were plenty of greenhorns to take their places. 
Moreover, the workers had so little money that in a few 
weeks’ time hunger drove them back to the benches. 
‘*But,’’ added Philip, ‘‘our gunmen make picketing im- 
possible. The union might make progress in their 
strikes if they had a chance to keep the scabs out of the 

[ 216 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


shops. We bribe the police and they assist our gunmen 
guards. They can’t talk to the workers, they don’t get 
a chance to win them over to the union.”’ 

‘‘Say,’? remarked Philip scornfully, ‘‘doesn’t it 
prove they are worms, these workers? They don’t 
know enough to put up a fight for what they want. 
Why don’t they get gunmen to fight the bosses’ gun- 
men? Gunmen are the cheapest thing in New York. 
What’s the price, Meyer: a black eye, five dollars; a 
general beating up, ten dollars; a broken arm or leg, 
twenty-five dollars; an out and out killing, fifty dollars! 

‘‘Tf they won’t do their own fighting, too finicky like 
the respectable manufacturers, why don’t they farm 
out the job to a private detective agency? They don’t 
care who pays them. They’llhire gunmen to fight their 
own gunmen. That’s the cheapest thing they got to 
sell, human abortions—what am I talking about—mon- 
key abortions. When they’re killed nobody’ll miss 
them; good riddance. Beat up the scabs the way we 
maul the workers. Fight for what you want, and the 
battle never goes to the finicky.’’ 

Uncle Philip’s half-joking, half-earnest tirade put a 
thought in my mind. I was running down a list of 
union organizers. There were too many pacifists. 
Life-for-love’s-sake fellows. They did not understand 
life as unending change in conflict. I remembered 
Michel Cahn. Lately he has been spouting a new 
creed. ... ‘‘All power to the workers. Seize the in- 
dustries, workers, and keep them. They are yours, 
could not exist without you. You created them. To 
heil with middle class parliamentarism. Act. Direct 
action.’’? . . . Michel Cahn is my man. I will put my 
gangs to work for him. Call off the other gangs. I will 

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HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


show the dream-stupefied how to get what you want. 
Use the simple method of life. Change in conflict. 

‘When do you want the strike?’’ Lasked... . Philip 
laughed. ‘‘Look at him. Mike Hirsch, Shield of Israel. 
Got everything fixed, already, I bet you.” . . . “Pretty 
near,’’ was my succinct avowal. 

My emissary found Michel Cahn taking tea in the 
Talkers’ Café. His answer was, ‘‘Let the Honorable 
Haunch Paunch and Jowl come here if he wants to see 
me.’’... Haunch Paunch and Jowl—so that’s the de- 
risive picture the radicals had drawn of me. The lean, 
drawn starvelings in their dream-stupefied state were 
jealous of my well filled out, prosperous form. It had 
not yet reached the terrible proportions of obesity that 
years in a swivel chair on the judicial bench had later 
given me. But I suppose I was beginning to get fat. 
Well, I knew how to put my pride in my pocket when 
it served my pocket. Anyway, I was always working 
for my pocket like the Big Chief of my party. So 
Haunch Paunch and Jowl meandered over to the 
Talkers’ Café and sought out the ideal-proud starve- 
ling, Michel Cahn, word-spewing revolutionist. 

I took Cahn by surprise. ‘‘Do you mean what you 
say—the struggle between capital and labor is a class 
war? If it is war, do you believe in the methods 
of war? Or, are you just a tea-drinking talker in the 
Talkers’ Café? The union is getting nowhere. You’ve 
got an organization. The members are getting tired 
of paying dues, their payments are not coming in the 
way they should. They are backsliding, gradually; 
you'll lose them all unless you give them results.’’ 

‘‘Well,’’ he said, measuring me carefully with his 
eyes, trying to sense my motive, ‘“‘have you come to tell 

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HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


me something I know, something I am saying all the 
time?’’ 

‘‘T have come to find out if you know that the unions 
are in a dangerous fix. What are you doing about it, 
besides talking? Isn’t the time ripe for militant 
unionism, direct action, fighting the bosses with the 
bosses’ tools?’’ 

‘‘Meyer,’’ he said, slowly, running a finger up and 
down his glass, ‘‘I have watched you grow up. I have 
watched your dear uncle. I know your breed. What 
do you want?’’ 

‘‘T want a job. I want to be the union’s lawyer. No 
fee. Just the prestige, just the acquaintances it will get 
me. I want to run your next strike, but not with your 
love-mumblers, but with you direct-actionists.”’...I 
held forth temptation. ... ‘‘Bring the strike to a suc- 
cessful conclusion and you'll become the union’s undis- 
puted leader. The men will follow blindly the man who 
wins for them the long fought and sought points.’’ 

‘‘And your uncle?”’ 

-¢¢Te’s frank about it. He put me up to this. I can’t 
and don’t want to humbug you on that. He sees 
Avrum’s point. He’ll be better off with union condi- 
tions. Better conditions will make better workers. 
Besides it will standardize and regulate production. 
It will give him more peace, leisure, enable him to plan 
ahead. But he can’t do it unless he has a strong union 
that will make his competitors toe the mark. A union 
shop, you know, can’t compete against a sweat shop. 
You’ve got to unionize the industry. But you can’t do 
it by following namby-pamby methods. There’s only 
one way you can convince pig-headed business men, 
who as a class think they. know better what’s best for 

f 219 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the world than any other class. They think their busi- 
ness ways are the only ways for the world. Force and 
strength, and the most convincing proof—getting it 
done—making them do it, will prove your point to 
them.’’ 

Then we began to talk in whispers. 

The following day I met the secret executive com- 
mittee in the back room of a saloon on Second Avenue. 
A militant strike was planned. The gangs got their 
first jobs with the unions to fight the bosses’ gunmen. 
In this way gang warfare became the crux of every 
New York strike. The battle went to the strongest 
gangsters reinforced by policemen. Sometimes labor 
had control, sometimes capital; but it was always a 
gang fight that decided the vital issues of capital and 
labor. 

Our attacks were concentrated on the shops of the 
biggest manufacturers, the key men of the industry, 
whose accounts Philip wanted to nab. They would be 
taken off their guard because they would not dream 
of a successful strike. Until now they had found the 
union easy picking. Their gunmen guards, Irish and 
Italian guerrillas recruited by private detective 
agencies, and a strong police guard, were their chief 
reliance. 

I saw the Chieftains of my party, and, thereupon, the 
police were suddenly needed elsewhere. At this time 
the garment manufacturers belonged to the silk-stock- 
inged Republican Party, and did not count with. us. 

Our gangs maneuvered around the shop district in 
carriages pulled by swift horses. They swooped down 
upon the guards, who heretofore had received no resist- 
ance, and surprised them with assaults in force. Our 

[ 220 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


gangs entered the workrooms with picked union men 
who spilled vitriol and other corroding acids on the 
finished and unfinished clothing. The scabs were 
driven out and the foremen badly beaten up. We 
established long picket lines, followed scabs to their 
homes and, if they would not listen to reason and join 
the union, they were severely mauled. Soon it spread 
around that it was dangerous to scab. The big shops 
were successfully tied up, and then we began to har- 
ass the smaller men. They quickly signed up with 
the union. But I advised against letting any shops 
begin manufacturing. Philip wasn’t quite ready yet. 
Nobody would be allowed to work until he was ready to 
spring his lines. And he didn’t intend offering his 
sure-sellers until there was a crying need for them. 
The big manufacturers had a great deal at stake. 
The labor turnover was the profit of the day. They 
increased the number of guards and then set up a vir- 
tuous outcry in the newspapers that law and order 
were being threatened by the violence and destruction 
of the union’s hired marauders. The gangs made 
feuds over the strike. It showed their lack of intelli- 
gence. They invaded each other’s home hangouts, 
fired off pistols at random and occasionally slaugh- 
tered an innocent bystander, a pushcart peddler or a 
child. Rarely was a gangster hurt. Pickets were 
brutally handled and our men broke the bones and 
heads of scabs. It became a battle royal, and it began 
to look as though the superior numbers of the bosses 
would win the day. I then hit upon the scheme of buy- 
ing off the bosses’ gunmen. I worked it through the 
ward politicians in the gangs’ home districts. I wanted 
them to lay off for three weeks, by which time the 
[ 221 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


manufacturers’ season would be killed. The Irish and 
Italian guerrillas were under the leadership of Tanner 
Jones, 2 young, fearless thug, and Jack the Rock, a 
Sicilian bravado. Both were amenable to their poli- 
ticians’ request and a handsome piece of change. 
Frenchie Lavelle also helped. Jack the Rock’s girls 
worked his place, and when he asked the Rock to be a 
good fellow for a couple of weeks, it clinched the 
matter. 

Meanwhile there was a great hullabaloo in the news- 
papers. They had an axe to grind. They looked for 
every chance to hit at Tammany’s police administra- 
tion, and proceeded to make capital out of the reign of 
lawlessness in the strike. Barney Finn was working 
for the strikers. His classmate was in charge of the 
city desk of one of the popular afternoon papers; and 
Barney interested him in the human interest stories of 
the hardships of the needle workers, and a sob sister 
was assigned to accompany Esther through the homes 
of starving garment workers. The sob sister turned 
the tide of public opinion. The sordid, semi-starved 
life of the sweatshop families had a Dickensian flavor 
and appeal. The vile sanitary conditions and long 
hours in the shops were described tellingly. The tune 
of the newspapers changed. Barney Finn emphasized 
Leader Lewkowitz’ point. The immigrant workers 
were fighting for an American standard of living. 
The newspapers took up the demand for an American 
standard of living, just what that was for the average 
American workman nobody knew. Sociologists were 
just beginning to stick their noses in the cess-pool of 
industry. At any rate, our cause became the popular 

[ 222 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


one. In a month’s time the manufacturers gave in and 
patched up a sort of truce with the union. 

Philip had gotten the accounts he wanted. He 
moved his showrooms to a swell Broadway office build- 
ing, but continued his shop in Madison Street, which 
now had grown into a place that needed three large 
floors. 

Now I was hailed as the workers’ champion. The 
union began to flourish, and as soon as it showed signs 
of prosperity and success the grafters and easy-thing- 
boys began to edge in. They looked for the soft jobs 
of business agents and walking delegates. 

Avrum had protested with unflagging consistency 
against the methods of warfare and big business in 
union affairs. He left the union. Cahn, flushed with 
victory, read him out of the organization. He said 
Avrum’s pacifism was the worst enemy of the union’s 
cause. It would keep the workers supine forever. 
Force must be met with force. Avrum said there would 
be no end to wrong if another wrong was used to 
oppose it. So Avrum said he would now devote him- 
self to educational programs for the workers. He then 
began a pilgrimage that took him all over the country. 

He toiled in coal mines and steel mills, always living 
in the wretched workmen’s colonies; labored with the 
textile workers at the great looms of New England and 
the South; joined the migratory pickers and garners 
of fruits and grains in the East, West, Southwest and 
the Coast; did loathsome tasks in canneries and 
fisheries; became a vegetarian after three months’ 
penance in Chicago slaughter houses; felled timber in 
the trackless forests of the great Northwest; grubbed 
in the copper and silver mines of the desert regions; 

[ 223 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


saw the land and the cities, spoke with the peoples in 
their jargons, dialects and home-land tongues; re- 
turned once in a while to see his family and talk 
earnestly with Esther; and then started anew on his 
search for the soul and needs and desires of the Ameri- 
can worker. Wherever he went he spoke the gospel 
of oneness of interests, pleaded for a combining of all 
crafts in one common union that would have an over- 
whelming moral force. He said union money should 
be used to found schools and universities for workers. 

He was laughed at, but his sincerity in the end won 
a hearing. Other migratory workers took up his mes- 
sage, went like wandering missionaries everywhere, 
trying to awaken a consciousness in the workers that 
they had one cause that should be effectively expressed 
in one big union. . . . In the little office of the settle- 
ment Avrum told Hsther, ‘‘I find that there is no such 
thing, as yet, as an American workman. They are to 
each other—Hunks, Wops, Squareheads, Kikes, Micks 
and Heinies. They look down upon each other from 
the heights of their nationalism. The American will 
not associate with the greasy foreigner. The Italian 
detests the Hungarian, and so on. Then, there is a 
class feeling of crafts. The mechanic holds the meaner 
workman as his social inferior. Everyone sees himself 
as a potential boss, dreams of amassing big money, 
employing others. The class lines are tightly drawn. 
But it will be different when the workers of America 
become a racial identity. Then they will see each other 
as brothers, in sympathy, comradeship and under- 
standing, as Americans all. Meantime, we must keep 
at them to learn, to rise above their clannishness, and 
mean aspirations; stop the sporadic struggles and 

[ 224 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


unite as one. When we break down the class lines, 
the snobbery of nationalism, replace it with a common- 
ality of spirit, then labor in its dignity and knowledge 
will share equally with capital the good things of the 
earth.’’ 


[ 225 


IV 


I hear amusing stories of Barney Finn’s attempts to 
compete with Boolkie. He is trying to win the boys 
away from the corner hangout with counter-attractions. 
What has he to offer? A reading room and a gym- 
nasium. And good precepts. On the other hand, 
Boolkie purveys adventure, easy money, good times. 
Dance halls. Joints. Racy tough babies. Jobs as 
scab-killers, the safe and easy employment of political 
thuggery and well-paid roughhouse onslaughts in gam- 
blers’ wars and disorderly house disputes. His was 
the life of thrills . . . and something doing all the 
time. . . . Boolkie’s biggest aid is unemployment. 
There are always more young men than jobs. Then 
again the jobs paid so poorly and were of such a mean 
character that it hardly paid to put in ten and twelve 
hours a day and at the end of the week find yourself 
without even a margin for a good time. .. . They 
didn’t want to become needle workers; they saw the 
hell of a life their fathers led. And what of the ambi- 
tious fellows who looked for economic salvation in 
business and professional life? A few rubs of the 
rough-grained world wore away the idealistic tender- 
ness and left them with a protective skin of callous- 
ness. It did not take them long to see that the straight 
and narrow path was long and tortuous and ended in 
a blind alley. There was nothing in the conspicuous 
examples of American life to inspire anything else. 
Politics stank of corruption and chicanery. Big busi- 
ness set even a worse example. Daily the people were 

[ 226 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


treated to scandal after scandal in commerce, industry 
and government. ... The order of the day was— 
PLAY THE GAME AS YOU SEE IT PLAYED.... 
It was a sordid generation, a generation creeping out 
of the mud into the murk. Avrum was right about one 
thing. There was not as yet an American identity. 
There was yet to rise up an American standard... . 
It was the time and process of finding ourselves, a sort 
of evolutionary process that began as a creeping thing 
in the scum. 

Such was my talk, my reasoning. Esther failed to 
see the exigencies I cried into the case. I spoke at 
length, sincerely. I believed, sincerely, my way was 
right. I guess I was arguing more to convince myself. 
I was raising up a bulwark of logic against Esther’s 
plea that I join the so-called forces for good. I had 
few intervals of leisure. I was up to my neck in a 
swamp of doings. I was a recognized leader. Being 
a politician, I had to be responsive to everyone’s beck 
and call. . . . Sometimes a lull came and then I would 
think of Esther. But while my mind and time were 
taken up it was easy to fight off the pull of Esther. ... 
Then it began to dawn on me that mine was the fate of 
every politician; my life did not belong to me, it be- 
longed to the party and the game. I was in too deep 
to draw out. I had taken root in the morass; I didn’t 
dare try transplantation. 


[227 J 


V 


We went together to the marriage of Lillie Rosenfeld 
to Sam Rakowsky, now the Sid Raleigh of song-writing 
fame. It was a grand affair in an uptown hall. The 
Kast Side’s Who’s Who was there. Sam was a famous 
son of the Ghetto, who had grown wealthy in the music 
publishing business. He and Al Wolff were also play 
producers, mostly musical comedies which were noth- 
ing more than glorified burlesque shows. Al said he 
knows what the public wants; fancy smut and a lot of 
bare legs. 

The jewels and gala gowns of our women vied with 
the electric lighted chandeliers. Everybody knew 
everybody. Hearty greetings, hails, shouts, guffaws, 
shrieks and gales of laughter, screechy children sliding 
on the dance floor, the zooming of a brass band playing 
Sam’s famous hits—a regular home party without fuss 
or repression. i 

Tonight, Hymie Rubin announced his engagement 
to Sam’s sister, May, a school teacher with serious eyes 
and café au lait colored hair. . . . Al Wolff came with 
his second wife—the first one was some unknown whom 
he had divorced. Mrs. Al Wolff II. was a famous 
musical comedy star. . . . Old friends, introducing 
their wives or husbands, or fiancées. . . . Everybody 
was married or getting married....Hymen was 
GLOod ta 

Ksther, dressed in a corn-colored dress, looked go 
alluring I could not keep my eyes off her. She was such 
a contrast to the full-blown peonies about her... . 

[ 228 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Fat arms, bulging busts, great hips, puffed up faces, 
double chins. . . . A white flower on a slender stem in 
a tropical garden. . . . When I found myself alone 
with her behind an artificial palm in a corner of a little 
balcony, I lost all control. I saw the luminous white- 
ness of her shoulders, the smouldering light in her 
eyes ... tonight they were not frozen... . Love, 
warmth, sensuousness were aswarm in the hot per- 
fumed air like bright-hued butterflies. . . . Hven 
Esther thawed, and came out of her sheath as a warm 
bloom. ... I had been drinking champagne. I was 
all aglow, mad, no longer Meyer Hirsch—minus the 
self I had given myself. I was only the man seeking 
his mate. ... Like the summer wind breathing the 
passion glow into the flower, full-awakening it, so were 
my words spoken close to Esther’s face.... I was 
on my knees before her, entranced by her beauty that 
diffused over me the odor and charm and promise of 
a new springtime. I kissed her hands lying in her lap. 
Then I felt her head lowered near mine and she 
was whispering. The music played. The whisper was 
lost, but one word nestled softly in my hearing... 
‘Shoy.??... And I let my head lay in the caressing 
folds of her gown and felt the quiver of her limbs. . 

Laughing voices came nearer, her hand pulled at my 
shoulder andI got up. . . . Love-making couples came 
seeking our nook. ... We sat quietly, without talk- 
ing, like guilty children.... A gruff voice .. . like 
a premonitory grumble of thunder that makes people 
fly to shelter. ... Nearer came the gruff voice, and 
I heard it call—‘‘Mr. Hirsch. Anybody seen Mr. 
Hirsch?’’... It was Big Joe, rougher looking for 
the need of a shave, with baggy clothes and a cap pulled 

f 229 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


down to his eyes as if to add to his disreputable appear- 
ance. His bloodshot eyes seemed like coals with dying 
gleams of fire. His message was urgent and brief. 
‘Three of the boys pinched. Murder charge. Outside 
bulls dropped them. Murder charge. Taken right 
down to Headquarters for the third degree . . . third 
degree .. . murder charge . . . the Dope, Archie and 
the Dago.’’ . . . I took leave of Esther hurriedly, told 
her I hoped I would be back in time to take her 
home.... ‘‘Esther, wait until the very last start to 
go, wait for me,’’ I pleaded... . But I did not get 
back in time. 

Boolkie waited outside Police Headquarters. He 
gave me a quick warning, ‘‘Third degree, boss.’’ I 
hastened in to see the Chief and asked him to lay off 
the third degree. They were my boys, regular boys. 
He told me an ominous fact. The railroad bulls had 
worked up the evidence, and the regular detectives 
had to join in when the evidence showed up bad. I ex- 
plained to the Chief that I had to stop the forcible 
examination of the boys. I knew that Dopie Ikie could 
not withstand the cajolery of rubber hose, blackjacks 
and police batons. ‘‘Chief,’’ I said, ‘‘one of these boys 
is weak-minded, nothing more than idiot and is bound 
to cave in.’’?... I sent for Big Jim and Little Tom. 
I got my way. The boys were safely locked up in cells 
and I saw them long enough to instruct them... . 
‘“Not adamn word. Don’t say a damn word.’’ 

The boys were accused of the murder of a ticket 
seller of the Canal Street station of the Second Avenue 
elevated. They were also charged with the robbery of 
over three hundred dollars of the railroad’s receipts, 
the alleged motive of the murder. The crime was now 

[ 230 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


six weeks old. It had caused the usual stir and then 
seemed to be forgotten. The police did not over- 
extend themselves in their investigation. General 
report had it that the boys had a hand in it. But the 
railroad company did not drop the case. Their detec- 
tives planted a stool pigeon in the saloons and other 
haunts of the gang. Dopie Ikie’s beery boast gave the 
game away. It seemed there would not have been a 
killing had not the Dope desired to shine as a killer. 
The boys had held up the ticket seller at the point of 
pistols, taken the money and were making their get- 
away when they heard a shot fired. Archie and Dago 
Jack looked back and saw the Dope grinning, with a 
smoking revolver in his hand.... It was the first 
notch on the Dope’s gun and he was proud of it. He 
bragged to the stool pigeon, and they were all hauled 
up to answer the murder charge... . The ticket chop- 
per and an old man waiting for a train were positive 
in their identification of the hold-up men. We tried to 
reach them via the usual channels of political pressure, 
money and threats. Boolkie was ready to bump them 
off himself. But the railroad detectives guarded the 
witnesses and supported them in grand style. The 
company wanted to stop the frequent hold-ups of their 
station agents. . . . The stool pigeon was an ex- 
convict. The only honest employment at this time open 
to a jailbird was as spy, informer and instigator. 
Boolkie wanted to get the stool pigeon. He half killed 
a barfly who earned drinks by cleaning spittoons in 
Jarski’s saloon, and from him learned the name of the 
rummy who had been seen chinning with the Dope over 
glasses of beer in the back room. The rummy was a 
poor kind of a squealer where taking care of himself 
[ 231 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


was concerned. He started off on a spree with the 
betrayal money. Boolkie traced him to the saloons and 
joints in the neighborhood of Jack the Rock’s hangout. 
He put a price of one hundred dollars on the tongue of 
the squealer. Two days later the hundred was paid. 
The rummy-amateur-detective was stabbed to death 
in a bedhouse to which he had been lured by a 
woman. They cut out his tongue as a warning to other 
informers. 

The case went to trial. Hiverything was against us. 
The Dope had blabbed to the railroad bulls the minute 
after he was taken in custody. The eyewitnesses were 
clear and convincing. We could not tamper with the 
jury as the railroad investigated every man that was 
called and they challenged the doubtful ones. Fortu- 
nately, we had one planted juror. He hung up the 
jury. We got the best we could hope for—a disagree- 
ment. 

But at the second trial the railroad forces were more 
vigilant. They had a high-class jury. The boys were 
convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair. 

The verdict, although expected, came as a shock. 
For that matter, I labored throughout the trial to get 
a verdict of guilty in a lesser degree than death. It 
sounds funny, but is the fact; everybody was fighting 
and praying for a favorable verdict that would give 
the boys life imprisonment! Such is the hold life 
has on us. 

In the corridor I found three mournful groups. 
Dopie Ikie’s mother, Mrs. Schneider, her head covered 
with a knitted woolen shawl, her shrunken face like a 
stark symbol of the recent death pronouncement, her 
body swaying as to a rhythm of despair, stood between 

[ 232 ] | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Archie the Cannon’s parents, the meek and highly 
respected Mr. and Mrs. Yonkel Wotin. The W otins 
seemed stunned, shrivelled up, as though the tears had 
been burned out of them. And near them, like a forlorn 
image, desolate in his Sunday crape suit, waited Dago 
Jack’s father, his furrowed leathern face stiffened 
with restrained tears. ... At the head of the wide 
staircase waited Boolkie, surrounded by bereaved 
Ludlow Streeters. ... And yet another group stood 
watch at the door, a delegation from the social settle- 
ment, come like a priestly comforter at the deathbed— 
Esther Brinn, Barney Finn and Dr. Lionel Crane. ... 
Finn’s pale blue eyes looked compassionately at the 
mournful group of parents, and then turned wrathfully 
upon Boolkie. But Finn could not stay angry for long. 
Esther spoke to him and they moved over to the mourn- 
ful parents with assurances that the fight to save the 
boys would not be given up.... I tried to give them 
hope and cheer, told them there were many chances for 
a successful appeal, but in my heart I knew there was 
none. . . . We had one hope left, the Governor’s 
clemency . . . to commute the death sentence to life 
imprisonment. 

The social settlement meant to make a stand against 


- capital punishment. I told them that they would have 


to move heaven and earth to influence the Governor, 
a Republican, a hard-boiled believer in the maximum 
penalty for all offenders. 

Dr. Crane said the fight should center around Dopie 
Tkie Schnieder. His life, he conceded quizzically, was 
the least worth saving. He saw the execution of Ikie 
as a piece of barbarism equal only to the legal murder 
of a child. He said Ikie was sentenced to death be- 

[ 233 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


cause he was legally of age, although mentally he was 
but a child, and no one is older than his mental years. 
Society must be very backward in its understanding 
if it cannot begin to realize that low grade imbeciles 
like Dopie Ikie are really infants dangerously endowed 
with the bodies of men. Being infants, they should not 
be saddled with the responsibilities of normal grown- 
ups, nor held lable as men of full reason for their 
acts. ... Ikie’s mentality—or lack of mentality—was 
one of the issues we fought out in the trial. Legally 
speaking, no one could testify Ikie was insane. No 
more than you can say that a boy of seven is insane 
Just because he has a limited, childish comprehension 
of life and its responsibilities. . . . Dr. Crane, as 
one of my expert witnesses, contended that Ikie should 
be treated according to his mental age. It was time 
that Society took up the question of the relation of 
the feebleminded to conduct, as we have taken up the 
insane’s relation to and effect upon conduct. They 
should be isolated like the insane, and kept from repro- 


ducing their kind... . Kept from reproducing their 
kind. ... The judge was a good churchman. He 
frowned. ... Man interfering with His Will!... 


The judge ruled Ikie was legally sane and responsible 
for his acts. ... Hsther knew Ikie, knew him for an 
irresponsible, foolish baby. Since the murder was due 
to his act, she reasoned the other two should not be 
put to death, but punished for their share of the crime. 
And, again, she did not wholly blame the boys. She 
felt that Society had neglected these children and now 
should do something for them. ... I have observed 
that Society begins to take an interest in its neglected 
[ 234 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


children as soon as these children take some kind of 
violent revenge upon Society. 

Dr. Harry Wotin came out of the courtroom. He 
had heard his brother Archie committed to death. 
He had not talked with his brother in years. But now 
that he was in trouble, Harry came to help him.... 
Everybody waits, and then gets fearfully busy when 
it is too late. ... Harry looks a little better dressed. 
His coat and pants match; they never did before. 
Hymie is bringing business to the office. It took Hymie 
but a few years to become the East Side’s most highly 
valued doctor. But Hymie said Harry was the greater 
scientist and healer of the two. But that didn’t put 
money in Harry’s pocket; Harry didn’t know how to 
play the game. ... Harry said nothing, took his par- 
ents’ arms and led them out of the courthouse. ... 
And then Esther wept, a silent upstanding grief, a 
few tears rolling down her cheeks. She wept for 
Harry. Harry who gave all his time to the settlement 
babies . . . later I learned the better reason for her 
tears. She feared the good Wotin father and mother 
would soon have another loss, another death, another 
son snatched away. Harry had volunteered to submit 
to experimental inoculations. ... The Wotin boys, 
Harry the doctor, and Archie the Cannon—so different, 
sprung from the same seed, nurtured in the same 
soil . . . so different . . . but were they really differ- 
ent? ... Fearlessness, self-immolation were their 
common characteristics. ... I remember... early 
in the trial . . . Archie saw it looked bad for the three 
of them. He said there was no use in the whole bunch 
being ‘‘croaked.’’ He would be the ‘‘fall guy,’’ assume 
all the blame and exonerate the other two... . He made 

[ 235 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


up a story that he thought would clear his companions 
and implicate him alone. Dago Jack refused the sacri- 
fice—and offered to make a similar one. Even the Dope 
would not let Archie take all the blame. ... And the 
Dope . . . he seemed to enjoy the whole mess, had no 
conception of what he had done or what was in store 
for him. He liked the life in the Tombs prison and 
afforded entertainment to his tier prisoners with his 
gibberish and silly songs. ... And how he liked it 
when a fellow prisoner rattled his bars and called out, 
‘‘Hey, Ikie the Killer, give us a song. Shut up, you 
bums, listen to a regular guy sing.’?.. . Dago Jack 
had the blues. He said it was his fault that Ikie came 
along. He had a tip that the station agent had a lot 
of money on hand, and invited Archie to stick him up. 
The Dope, hearing that a job was to be pulled off, 
begged to be taken along. The Dago was a good fellow, 
didn’t want to hurt the Dope’s feelings and let him 
trail along. ... They would never have trusted him 
with a gun, but Ikie managed to get hold of a gun by 
lying to Jarski’s bartender, whom he told that Boolkie 
had sent him for a pistol. . . . And so it hap- 
pened.... 

When I told Esther of Archie’s proposal to shoulder 
all the blame and die to save his fellows, and how Dago 
Jack refused and made a like offer, she recalled Davie’s 


belief . . . his belief in that something in man’s make- 
up that was always working, working to exalt human 
conduct. . . . She was very bitter at the general 


indifference towards the city’s children. She felt that 

under other conditions these condemned murderers 

might have been of some good to themselves and their 

community.... Yet... I tried to point out... so 
[ 236 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


many others, confronted with the same set of circum- 
stances and conditions, had turned out so much dif- 
ferent and better. ... I thought her answer very cold 
and somehow it rankled in me for a long time .. . 
‘‘Not so very different, Meyer, not so very different.”’ 


A few months later I went up to Sing Sing to tell 
the boys the bad news. The appeal had gone against 
them—unanimously. The date of execution was 
fixed. ... Archie looked towards the little green door 
that leads to the fatal chamber, and said, ‘‘ All right, 
dust off the electric chair.”? . . . Dago Jack was 
equally unmoved. . . . They would live up to their 
part—their ideal; fearlessness—to the last flicker. ... 
And the Dope . . . he paid little attention to our talk 
and seemed more interested in a new clog dance that 
one of the death-house inmates had taught him... . 

We flooded the Governor with letters, petitions, tele- 
grams and appeals. But we could not penetrate his 
hard-boiled maximalism. Finally, Barney Finn and 
I went to Albany to plead with the Governor for com- 
mutation. He was adamant. He said the crime was 
heinous and called for dire punishment as an example 
and warning. . . . Sounded like the railroad’s attor- 
ney. ... I had no influence with him. I belonged to 
the wrong party. He made a slap at me when he 
declared that the boys’ crime could be laid with all 
propriety at the doors of Tammany Hall.... Five 
years later the Governor and I met again. I recalled 
his high and mighty condemnation of wrongdoing. I 
recalled how righteously he asseverated no wrong 
should be condoned by right-thinking citizenship. ... 
When the Governor and I met again I had one of his 

[ 237 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


personal friends in a black pocket. I had him cornered. 
This friend of the Governor’s, a prominent society 
man, member of an old aristocratic American family, 
was found out as an unspeakable criminal, a corrupter 
of children, a poisoner of the spring of womanhood. 
And this same Governor bought me off, bought me off 
to suppress the evidence, bought me off with Well, 
that should be told Iater. . . . Meanwhile, the boys 
were doomed to die. 


I remember the day of the electrocution. Dr. Harry 
Wotin was on his deathbed in a hospital. I went to see 
him with a little remembrance from his brother Archie, 
some little something Archie had fashioned out of 
horsehair in the death-house. I also brought a horse- 
hair ring for Esther, a gift from the Dope...) > Harry 
was surrounded by a clinic of eminent physicians. . . . 
They were watching his death with keen interest—with 
deference towards the martyr to science... . Up in 
Sing Sing his brother, too, was being attended by physi- 
cians—awaiting the death thrill that would give them 
the criminal’s brain for study. ... Here in the hos- 
pital Harry was proving his important point—by 
dying. The doctors said he was right; a certain some- 
thing does cause a certain something which kills. ... 
Harry was dying to save others. And Archie was 
being killed to warn others. ... Where was Mamma 
Wotin? She had chosen to go to Sing Sing to be near 
the boy who was to die in ill-fame’s consuming em- 
brace. That boy, in her mother’s heart, needed her 
most. ... Harry could have the consolation of a great 
deed done. 

Dopie Ikie went to his death doing his clog dance. 

[ 238 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


He called upon the official witnesses, a solemn statu- 
tory gathering, to see how good he could click his heels 
together. Not aman smiled. They dared not have a 
sense of humor in the face of death. Ikie was greatly 
amused when they seated him in the chair and fastened 
a bandage around his eyes. He laughed outright as if 
he had been tickled by the copper trappings and straps 
they attached to his body, and when the juice was 
turned on, it burned the leer upon his sallow, pimply 
face and glazed the eyes that never saw life except as 
a place of playthings. ... Archie was taciturn. He 
refused to see both his mother and the Rabbi. He asked 
for a cigarette, which I gave him. He lighted it, and 
remarked it brought back a certain taste to him... . 

‘“T taste it now,’’ he said, as though chewing, ‘‘the 
potatoes we used to bake in our street bonfires. Do 
you remember how good they tasted, Meyer; do you 
remember?’’ ... And they escorted him through the 
little green door. . . . Dago Jack marched to his death 
in all the glory of Catholic repentance and forgive- 
ness. ... He madea strange request. ... They had 
taken the Dope first, as they thought he would be least 
able to stand the ordeal of waiting. As the Dope 
passed the Dago’s cell, the Dago whispered, ‘‘Wait a 
minute, kid. C’m here an’ let me kiss you.’”’... He 
kissed Ikie’s cheek. ... ‘‘Forgive me, kid, will you 
forgive me? I should ha’ never let you come. You’re 
only a baby. I should ha’ never let you come ... poor 
kid . . . you’re only a baby.’’? . . . And so they 
BGS! \ 00's 


[ 239 ] 


VI 


Now comes gossip to torment me. . . . And it drifts 
in to me, the talk in the bazaars—the jostled world of 
pushcarts and stands, stalls and trays and baskets, the 
talk of the lullful moments, when hucksters and bar- 
gainers forget fish, and apples, and underwear and 
pillows, for more toothsome fare. .. . 

‘‘Did you hear dh 

‘‘What are you talking ...tchk...a shame, as I 
live, a shame for Jewish people.’? 

‘“‘You didn’t hear... . Thou knoweth Brinn—a fine 
man and learned, and what is more, a good Jew ... his 
daughter ... thou remembereth little Estherril—a dark 
one sy 

‘*Yeh—yeh—I remember si 

““Nu, they say ... they say she’s going to marry 
that long goy (Gentile).”? ... Meaning Finn... 

“‘For sure . . . you know for sure, landsfrau (lands- 
woman) ?’’ 

‘So I should know of my troubles... . Who amI 
to be the confidant of Americanskies, hah? . . They 
say ... and so I say—if you’ll let me have the pota- 
toes a penny cheaper I’ll take ten pounds A 

‘*T can’t, believe me, we should both so live, the way 
I can’t They: say, you say ... utt 2. if they 
say, it must be something already, if they Say.’ 

‘‘And that means called America . . . such a calam- 
ity to parents ... tomarry a goy ... Tchk. A mad 
shame, such a year and luck on me, nach what a 

[ 240 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


shame! ... Igo... can you let me have it a little 
eheaper ...orIgo....”’ 

Esther and Finn were seen so much together as to 
bring out a great clucking of ‘‘they say’’——_ But sup- 
pose. . . . What a hateful blow to my ego were 
Esther even to consider another one when I, I—Meyer 
Hirsch—wanted her. 

Shadchans (marriage brokers) are after me. . .. 
They bring alluring offers of dowries. They keep the 
marriage idea in my mind, an idea to summon up one 
image—Hsther’s. And now gossip buzzes disturbing 
warnings inmy ears.... Esther.... Your Esther... 
she who fills the secret places of your being ... the 
places you never look into, don’t want to look into. ... 
Esther of the secret places ... look out, you’ll lose 
oo ee 

But wouldn’t I be a fool . . . just when things are 
shaping my way. ... Marriage might be the biggest 
stepping stone of all, the big boost up to the High 
Places. ... Consider. ... Why are you looking for 
trouble! ... Think. ... You’re so well off for the 
biding period; you have nothing to complain of; bide 
your time. ... There is Gretel, a divan of delight 
for your tired head. . . . A comfortable, unannoying, 
storm-free arrangement. . .. Why, why look for 
trouble ... you’re fair on your way to the biggest 
career in New York ... how you are sizing up!... 
Time ... just more time. ... The cynosure of all 
eyes; looked up to; catered to; they’ll run after 
you. .... And power! Power. Money. Position... . 
Beautiful cultured damsels with tempting fortunes 
... of high-up families ... anointed and arrayed for 
you ... paraded before you as before a king... 

[ 241 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


yours to choose .. . to pick the queenliest of all to 
grace your kingly court....Bah...and_ that 
other ... that nobody ... well, what if her grand- 
father was the Vilna Gaan (Chief Rabbi of Vilna) .. . 
look at her father, what a father-in-law, a father-in-law 
who sells penny-a-glass soda water ... puh! 

These are the thoughts filtering into my mind like 
hot ashes. . . . I am getting ready for bed. . . . It is 
the beginning of another summer. . . . I stand by the 
window . . . a young moon rides the heavens, trailing 
the gauziest of nebulae . . . like a bridal veil... a 
bridal veil. ... Gretel calls me . . . is she apprehen- 
Sive . . . does she sense that I am seeing a heavenly 
virgin bedecked in nuptial lace?... ‘‘Come away, 
Meyer. ... How long! . . . you have been staring at 
the moon! They say it is not good to look at the moon. 
Do not look at the moon... come, Meyer, my heart, 
come now to bed.’’ ... 

Gretel murmurs over me in the way of her nightly 
wooing ... ‘‘My tired one, rest here. May my arm 
be your pillow, beloved. ... King among men, so, my 
tired one ... s0.”? 

In the brooding quiet the bothersome thoughts re- 
turn. The moon’s glow invades my closed lids. I turn 


from the moon, turn and fidget. . . . ‘*Rest, my heart, 
rest... Meyerelle ... you are uneasy ...I1 will 
whisper you to sleep. . . . You looked at the moon and 


stars, my pretty, my Meyerelle. .. . But I, your 

Gretel, I look at you... . Sleep then, my prettiness, 

sleep... . You are my shining moon and stars, my 

shining moon and stars... and the world... you 

are Gretelle’s world, heart mine. . . . Here you rest 

upon my heart... . Task nothing more. .. rest upon 
f 242 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


my heart .. . the world is mine.’’?... Her hot lips 
press upon my eyes, searing into them, as if to burn 
out all other images and visions. ... Divan of de- 
light, diva . . . drooping, lulled, soothed . . . asleep. 

I rouse up in terror. A red glare seems to have 


burst before my eyes . . . but the room is yawningly 
black. . . . Had not a bell clanged insistently, 
clanged . . . and was there not a rushing, blood- 


curdling outcry? ... And the moon has gone, left me 
in a terrifying darkness. ... Maybe Gretel cried out in 
her sleep. I bend over her face and feel her breath 
upon my cheek. She sleeps calmly. ...I wait and 
listen, straining my senses. . . . What waked me? .. . 
The glare. The bell. The wind of anguished 
voices. .. . All is quiet, the dead stillness of a tomb. 
The blackness expands. I am dropping in an abyss—a 
speck in the deeps. . . . I clutch the coverlet. . . . The 
blackness contracts. . . . Now it is pushing upon 
me .. . the walls are drawing together, the ceiling 
sinks down upon me. . . . I gasp for breath, I am 
stifling. . . . I thrust out my hands to stay the crush- 
ing walls. . . . Istrike Gretel. She awakes, grasps me 
in her strong comforting arms, holds me to her breast 
like a slipping, fainting child and pours beseeching en- 
dearments upon my face. ... Slowly, I come to and 
sink my face in her dress, glad to shut out the night- 
mare like a boy covering his head with a sheet... . 
‘*Tell me, now, you are quiet. What is it, my life, 
what is it? Tell me. You were tossing and tear- 
ing. .. . Your brow is cold and wet . . . so rest, here 
by my heart ... so.’’. . . Shaken, spent, I snuggle 
to her side and hold her tight. 
[ 243 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘Nothing, Gretel. Ill sleep now. Just a bad 
dream.’’ 

I shake off the childish dread. - I must dismiss 
the bothersome thoughts and Pied I can sleep. I had 
taken them to sleep with me. ... Quietly, I consider, 
clear-brained. . . . Iknownow. . . . There is no other 
way. It is eatted. I know. . (pad on. Push on, 
Meyer Hirsch. Now, the ian is carrying 
you...» push on. ... Ambition is the undying de- 
Sire... push on... . Ambition is the un—— 


{ 244] 


SIXTH PERIOD 


: And sit we upon the highest 
throne in the world, yet sit we upon our own 
TN Ga 

MontTAIGNE. 


Aly 
aN as 
Sart MA 


l 
We 


hi 


SIXTH PERIOD 
I 


‘‘The time has come to throw Gretel overboard.’ 

Little sparks eddied and then were swooped up the 
chimney. A log adjusted itself with a painful crunch, 
spurting new flames and sparks. Philip and I sat 
alone in the unlighted library, ensconced in deep 
leather armchairs, basking in the fitful glow of the open 
fireplace. ... Philip waited, waited for his words to 
burnin. Flicking a little cloud of ashes from his cigar 
into the tumult of flames, he sat forward, bringing his 
steady inquiring gaze upon my immobile face. 

‘‘Get rid of her, Meyer. Your ship’s putting into 
port ... don’t need ballast any more... get ready 
for a rich cargo.’’... 

He watched my face. I did not so much as flicker an 
eyelash. But he seems to read my thoughts. . 
‘*She’s becoming a fixture in your life. What’s worse; 
don’t let her become an unbreakable habit. ... Mark 
you, Meyer . . . your prescience of old has not become 
dimmed, I hope. See through ....and ahead... . 
Since we moved uptown we had to give the lovely 
Gretel a new status; we invented a pretty fiction— 
she’s a companion for your aging mother—lives in 
your mother’s apartment—but in your apartment, 
too—on the top floor ... we think, away from the 
servants’ prying eyes . . . we think we are fooling 
the world. ... But Gretel is too much the buxom 
beauty, a beauty that is seen too much as your mother’s 

[ 247 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


companion . . . good clothes, handsome carriage ... 
a suggestive picture. ... What then shall we expect 
but that the world in its private little whispers should 
Say it suspects? .. . And soa pretty tale spreads.’’ 

An anguished hiss; the living sap is scorched as ir 
a flame of hate. Change in conflict. Hiss, sizzle, hiss. 
Moaning, dying, expiring in a simmer. Gretel. Over- 
board. The sacrificial logs crackle in answer: over- 
board with her, overboard; we’re burning up for you; 
let her drown for you. The cold hearth—the end, the 
grave. But Philip throws on more logs. A merry 
sparkle. Gayety—Glamour. The song of life in death; 
death feeding, giving life. Change in conflict. Every- 
thing dies for you, for you—Meyer Hirsch. 

Philip falls back, lost in contemplation of the gloom 
over the mantelpiece, speckling with gleams, like fire- 
flies in an overcast night. 

Thoughts pile on me. TI daresay it’s a fleeting mo- 
ment that Philip has kept the silence. Like a flash of 
the myriads of the heavens, thoughts, images, happen- 
ings and talk spun out in this mere breath of time. 
The world’s agony is told in a sigh. .. . Gretel’: 24 
get rid of her. Esther; don’t think of her, don’t, don’t. 
Hsther. . . . Last night Dr. Hymie Rubin came to see 
mother. Suppose she dies. Then something will have 
to be done about Gretel. . . . His knock-knees are 
funny. How he waddled around the room. Picked up 
books and threw them down. With a bang, down went 
the books. ‘‘What’s the use?” he squeaked, recalling Hi 
Rube of Lavelle’s . . . Lavelle’s. Gaslit glories. . 
‘*Damn books. What’s the use?” .. . Philip snorted. 
He knew what Hymie meant. .. . ‘‘Uptown; the 
animal on top. Uptown, a new world of get-on- 

[ 248 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


johnnies living off downtown stay-where-you-are- 
mutts.’? ... His knock-knees were funny, and his 
beard. He said there’s nothing the matter with 
mother; she’s just homesick, lonesome for the Ghetto; 
her world. He did not even say good night; banged 
down the stairs, sounded as if his knees were banging 
together. . . . Uptown. The apex of prosperity. 
Fitted snugly in the smug brownstone West Highties 
overlooking Central Park. Uptown. On the crest. 
Uptown. But downtown, there I maintain a voting 
residence, the mouth of my tentacle. Politically, I am 
still an East Sider, politically only. I am still feudal 
lord, but as a sort of political absentee landlord. New 
style in politics for political bosses. Convenient. 
Absentee feudal lord. Somebody said that. Barney 
Finn. The hell with him. The hell with him.... 
Hirsch & Freund, going bigger than ever, still draws 
its great practice from the Hast Side, but it’s spread- 
ing around that we are a firm for results. Results. 
Doesn’t matter the who or the how; get the results. 
Results; and they flock tous. ... Whata grand suite 
of offices, ours, Hirsch & Freund’s—an entire floor of 
a skyscraper. Last word in skyscrapers, rugs, desks, 
clerks, files, pretty stenographers, partitions, water- 
marked stationery, tricks and results.... And 
Philip is getting results. A smart array of showrooms 
and offices in a Broadway loft edifice. Edifice; not just 
a building. An edifice—to results. But Philip manu- 
factures in the good old way . . . hiss, swelter and 
seethe... . the Good Old Way—sweating on a grand 
scale. In barracks, that’s where he manufactures the 
sure sellers, The New World Brand for Men Who 
Know Clothes for Men. . .. In dingy barracks, asoak 
[ 249 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


with sweat. . . . But they get the results. The shekels. 
And Philip is rich; how rich no one knows. Everybody 
says he is a millionaire; which is nearly as good as 
being one. ... Five years. The last five years of our 
great Coming Up in the world. . . . Turned down the 
nomination for the Superior Criminal Court bench. 
Good judgment—Meyer Hirsch’s! Saw it was an off 
year for my party. Won’t do to be tagged as a de- 
feated candidate. No black mark of defeat on the 
record of M. H. My party just went down to defeat. 
Didn’t hurt my prestige; my district rolled up a big 
vote for Tammany. Even defeat made me shine—by 
contrast. . . . So, I’ll wait and run in a sure year. 
New York’s reform spurts are shortlived. Took all 
the Good Elements to lick us. A fusion ticket; sour, 
left-out-in-the-cold Tammanyites, disgusted Jeffer- 
sonian Democrats, and clever Republican politicians 
aching for a whack at the public crib. They raised a 
tremendous fuss. A storm of old stuff; abuses, scan- 
dals, graft, redlight, waste, inefficiency; old stuff. A 
virtuous fuss and pother that even got the people to 
vote who usually were too respectable and superior 
to bother going to the polls. Just the same my district 
showed up fine in the count. Privileged class’ plural 
voting ; repeaters, floaters, stuffers. Control. Organi- 
zation. Cash. Showed I kept my district in my vest 
pocket. Funny; the reformer Barney Finn ran on the 
Fusion ticket for alderman. Snowed him under. 
Damn him; he raked me over the coals. He called my 
number. Called me out of my name. He and the 
Socialists may think they’ve got my number. Can’t 
harm me if they have my number, so long as the bulk 
of my voters don’t know how to figure. But I get a 
[ 250 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


sick feeling thinking of those damned Socialists. How 
they attack me; describe me as Colossus of the Flesh- 
pots astraddle the East Side. One foot on its belly 
and the other foot on its neck. Hawnch Paunch and 
Jowl. And they print caricatures of me in their scur- 
rilous daily. Haunch Paunch and Jowl. The Socialists 
are gaining votes. I’m keeping the regulars, the good 
old standbys, the favor-seekers. But the Socialists are 
gathering the new crop of voters; the untested genera- 
tion. The younglings. The Russian newcomers taught 
in the school of revolutionary thought. Bah! the 
Socialist of today is the bourgeoisie of tomorrow. 
Wait until they bunk against realities. Wait until they 
get a little worldly goods. They’ll change. They’ll 
come around. When a radical grows up he is a con- 
servative. ... Everything is fuel. ... 

‘Did you speak, Meyer?’’ 

I’m not going to talk about Gretel. I’ll shift the 
subject. 

‘¢‘ Just thinking, Phil; are the unions bothering you 
much??? 

‘““We’re gunning for them. Organized my manu- 
facturers’ union. Slip of the tongue; not a union. An 
association of manufacturers; an association. .. .’’ 
A sardonic laugh.... ‘‘A vast dealisinaname. A 
union is un-American. An association fights for Amer- 
ican principles. Get me, Meyer....’’ Hiss. Sputter. 
Angry snaps and bites. ... ‘‘Unions are opposed to 
the grand American institution—Personal Liberty. 
They deny workmen the right to work. None of the 
unions’ business to tell free American workmen for 
whom, what and where and how to work. They can’t 
tell us how to run our business. We’re American, the 

[ 251 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


association; and the union, a foreign invasion. .. .”? 
Overboard with Gretel. Phil is consistent. After the 
union served his purpose he threw it overboard... . 
*“‘Can’t say. ... In a way, yes, Meyer, in a way, the 
unions have done the industry a certain amount of 
good. Improved the workers’ standard of living and 
with it the standard of the industry. But can’t let the 
unions grow too strong, learn too much. Always 
the danger of their getting wise unto themselves and 
taking over the industry. And where would we get off 
at? ... Slowly, imperceptibly, let the unions whole- 
somely regulate the industry. Good for the bosses and 
workers to end the body-destroying and nerve-racking 
seasonal rush. .. .’? 

But Philip doesn’t want to talk about business. He 
lapses into cigar-puffing, a sort of let ’s-drop-it hint. 
After leaving his offices Philip had made it an inflexi- 
ble, self-defense rule never to talk shop. In the begin- 
ning he found business an exacting mistress. Madame 
Business said, if you want to keep me, and if you 
want me to keep you, you must give yourself wholly 
to me.... Now Philip is rich enough to relax, to 
seek other interests. He didn’t want to belong body 
and soul to his business. All around him he saw the 
awful bores it was making of nine out of ten busi- 
ness men. ‘They could see, hear, talk and read only 
business. 

Philip finished his coffee, rang for the butler, who 
gave him a light for a fresh cigar... . Once more he 
swings my thoughts to Gretel... . True, she had 
taken on a new status uptown. She calls herself Ger- 
trude; only lets me call her Gretel when we are alone. 
Bit by bit she has picked up a fair English, though 

[ 252 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


I prefer her musical Yiddish with its poetic flexibility. 
As mother’s companion she gets around everywhere 
in the automobile, shopping and visiting. . . . Private 
whispers. . . . Sizzle. Her full figure with pleasing 
roundness shows of the good clothes she wears, and 
I see with pride that men’s eyes follow her. .. . Will 
the fiction be found out, the whisper flare into a burn- 


ing scandal? ... Get rid of her?... I had never 
thought of that... . Everything is so cozy and com- 
fortable and well-ordered. . . . The last five years had 


really seen me grow fat—Haunch Paunch and Jowl. 
My chin seemed to start at my cheek bones. Hogshead 
belly and cabbage head. ... Did Henri Fabre ask, 
why does the white butterfly seek the cabbage? .. . 
Gretel. Surely, now I was getting to be like most fat 
people, willing to let well enough alone, to stay put. . . . 
On the other hand, look at Uncle Philip who has kept 
himself slim and erect, remained a vital fighter. He 
1s stirring my hulk, prodding the fat upon my sensi- 
bilities, urging me out of the lethargy. I know what’s 
in his mind. Another big step forward. The old 
Philip; never satisfied. In fact he’s getting ready, 
himself, for such a step—marriage. 

‘*Don’t wait until she is an embarrassment... .?? 

‘“‘Gretel will never stand in my way... .”’ 

‘*You can’t count on a woman. You never know a 
woman even after you’ve lived a lifetime with her. 
You don’t know her because she don’t know herself.?? 

Someone came into the room, a gliding, nigh sound- 
less presence. The Japanese butler with a tray. ... 
I mused over the coffee. Philip threw away the half- 
burnt cigar for the luxury of a fresh smoke. ‘Only 
the first two inches, no more,’’ he says with epicurean, 

[ 253 J 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


millionairish diffidence. He bent over the match, 
brought his face nearer the firelight, and I studied his 
heavy shock of black hair, clustering into little groups 
of tiny curls, with its strange wide swath of gray. He 
has the tight mouth of a dyspeptic. Little hollows 
have been clawed out of his cheeks. Yet a handsome, 
rather distinguished face, for its spareness. Is it the 
deepening firelight ... his eyes ...ajest ... eyes 
of a dreamer, a poet .. . but his cheek bones and chin 
bone and forehead bones .. . the steel skeleton of a 
skyscraper. ... Indeed, a skyscraper, steel, stone 
and iron-flanged concrete, personality. ... Once he 
remarked it is a wonder he had survived at all the mad 
fury of the early struggle. His business had indeed 
been his mistress; a passion greater than the passion 
of blood, the passion for power wealth would bring. 
An eighteen-hour day was the usual thing, hardly even 
pausing to eat. A snatch, gobble and guzzle—lunch. 
Late in the evening, as he worked, hunger would claw, 
remindingly. Dinner—supper. Open a can of salmon, 
soak it in briny artificial vinegar and spoon it up with 
a hunk of bread; with a large raw onion for a condi- 
ment. On. Drive on. And his had been a seven-day 
week. ... And now Philip had a stomach to remind 
him. The stomach reminded him that there was life. 
The stomach made him repent.... At last, almost 
at the brink of stomachic demoralization he saw there 
was life—life to be lived. Like all the commerce- 
cursed, he said he would live—live the way he wanted 
to live—big, grand, wonderful, when he had made his 
pile. But nearly always, they get buried under that 
pile. ... At last life was there to live, but he had 
lost the habit of living, had not the capacity, mental, 
[ 204 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


physical or spiritual, to live. Everything in him was 
almost sapped out by the vampire. Toil was a habit. 
Sometimes it seemed he could not live without the 
pressure. ... But he was Philip and took himself in 
hand. He tried to win back the habits of interests, 
reading and living. It came hard. He had to teach 
himself over again. He had to wean himself of the 
business man’s contempt for culture. And the stomach 
needed the tenderest ministrations of a great dietitian. 
He heard the verdict, die or diet... . But the great 
thrust of the incentive to live came when Phil decided 
to attack the citadel of the Jewish Four Hundred, the 
exclusive social aristocracy of the German Jews. He 
tried and was rebuffed. They wanted not a Russian 
Jew in their midst. So he decided to hold aloof a 
while. He would find a way to sneak into the holy city 
and stay in. 

Phil became a princely entertainer. A host of syco- 
phants flocked round his lavish purse, and became the 
fown-criers of his greatness. He started first-night 
parties at the theatres, followed by memorable suppers 
to the chief actors of the play. He financed shows with 
Al Wolff, became an angel of support and success to 
would-be prima donnas and tragediennes. His com- 
pany was graced by beauteous women. He was the 
high patron of charity benefits) He became the man 
about town. He had his box at the opera, hob-nobbed 
with the famed persons of the stage and opera. In his 
business district he created a luncheon club, censored 
its membership list and made it fastidiously exclusive. 
In truth, he was a prince among business men. Down- 
town he was sought out by everyone. But, somehow 
the unwritten law kept him from being asked into the 

[ 255 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


charmed inner circle of the Jewish Four Hundred. He 
had not pedigree. He was a nouveau riche Russian 
Jew. And the élite had a definite rule against Rus- 
sian or Polish Jews, just as the real Four Hundred 
had a hard and fast rule against Jews entering their 
intimate circle. How then may a society remain exclu- 
sive unless it is exclusive? ... And it came to pass 
im Philip’s mind that he would marry himself into the 
elect. Not for a second was he thinking of marrying 
a wife. He would take unto himself—a pedigree, a 
social license. . .. And he was nearing the stage of 
aegotiations with his prospective father-in-law, which 
accounts for Phil’s pressing of the subject of Gretel 
tonight. For tonight Philip expected Herman Solomon 
Munsterkase—his potential father-in-law—to call with 
a rich banker to play pinochle in Philip’s famous 
bachelor quarters. . . . And this Munsterkase had an 
unmarried daughter on his hands, a leftover in the 
social shuffle for husbands. More to the point was 
Miss Josephine Rauch Munsterkase’s most apparent 
age. She was old enough to worry her parents, who 
belonged to a world that regarded old maidenhood in 
one of their daughters as a personal, insufferable 
reflection. ... I met the lady on the steps of the Fifth 
Avenue Temple, a temple which Philip joined as a 
maneuver in his siege of the Four Hundred. She was 
a dried-up specimen, without even the saving grace of 
personality. But Phil minded only one thing—the 
pedigree. And the Munsterkases had a flock of cousin- 
ships in the social aviary atop the upper crust where 
inbreeding of social self-sufficiency had made them like 
royalty—one family. So their pedigree was the prize 
he was after—a life pass into the sacred precincts. . . . 
[ 256 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


It is laughable, ironic. What have you got, now that 
you’ve got it! That is what Philip exclaimed when at 
last he had reached the peak. And what did he find? 
The rare people of the high altitudes were like all land- 
locked mountaineers, dull, gloomy, backward and 
painstakingly provincial... . The tragedy of Phil’s 
life is that he always got what he wanted. ... How 
longingly he looked at that social High Place of the 
Jewish Four Hundred. . . . As soonasa Russian J ew, 
the crass and despised herring-eater, makes a heap of 
money, he is obsessed with a consuming yearn to mingle 
with high-up German Jewish society. And, I suppose, 
his longing is intensified by the latter’s unabiding con- 
tempt. ... In my own case, though, I was more like 
the new-born American Jew, holding myself as a part 
of a new aristocracy—the American aristocracy of 
success, hall-marked with the dollar sign . . . dollar 
land... dollar land.... 

“Tf you'll take my advice, Meyer, you won’t lose 
any time. Don’t wait for 3 

*‘Mr. Munsterkase and Mr. Mortimer.’’?... The 
announcement came with the click that turned on the 
electric lights... . Munsterkase was a man of about 
sixty, short, stoop-shouldered and potbellied; his yel- 
lowish complexion was relieved by a Van Dyke beard 
of reddish white; and his narrow thin face seemed 
smaller because of a great curved nose. You remem- 
bered Munsterkase by his nose. He crossed the room 
with a slight swaying motion, and presented Adolf 
Mortimer, his cousin. . . . Mortimer of the banking 
family of that name: the great Mortimers! The room 
seemed to light up with their august presence. . . . 
Again I was struck by Munsterkase’s heavy Teutonic 

[ 257 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


accent, and was more surprised since I learned he had 
been in America over forty years.... It was the 
accent of his shut-in clan. . . . Mortimer was different. 
Tall, broad-shouldered, with an outdoor complexion 
and easy physical bearing, he looked the American 
developed on a university campus. His enunciation 
reminded me of Dr. Lionel Crane, whom I was expect- 
ing this evening. The Harvard Tone. ... Munster- 
kase had a lineal hold in a department store, and 
Mortimer had inherited a vice-presidency in a banking 
house founded four generations ago in the free city of 
Hamburg and now was financing copper mines and 
railroads in Western America. ... Here are people 
to kotow to... chief seat holders of the Fifth 
Avenue Temple. ... For a certainty we are getting 
there ... but there is a sour taste in my mouth... 
Gretel. ... Well, I suppose, what else ... over- 
board. ... I am incoherent tonight—small talk— 
Phil is telling a story—did I hear him say over- 
board ... no, board of directors. ... Now Esther 
jumbles up my mind.... Gretel.... Esther.... 
Why does her image come to worry me tonight... it’s 
so long now that I have even talked with her. I thought 
she had quite faded away ... but tonight.... 

A committee from the temple files into the room 
headed by young Rabbi Drucker. They have come to 
confer with me. I have been sticking my oar into the 
temple affairs. I have been busy raising an issue. A 
successful politician knows how to make capital out of 
his opponents’ material. Finn is getting too much 
influence in the East Side. What is worse, he is sin- 
gling me out for attack. I have suggested to the temple 
that our congregation start a social settlement in the 

C 258 


 HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Ghetto to salvage the drifting spiritual life of the new 
generation, who are falling too much under the un- 
Jewish influence of persons like Finn. ... I invited 
Munsterkase and Mortimer to advise with the com- 
mittee. My mind is again clear and keenly alert. I am 
mindful to make a good impression on Phil’s intended 
papa-in-law.... ‘‘We won’t be long,’’ I console 
them; ‘‘and then we can play pinochle with a good 
conscience ;’’? which makes everyone laugh. ... Soon 
we are settled comfortably before the fire; and our 
gliding Japanese servants offered smoking things. . . . 
Drucker was assistant Rabbi to the venerable Joseph 
Roseman, for many years Rabbi of the Fifth Avenue 
Temple. The young Rabbi was an ambitious fellow 
and knew all the wiles of the climber. His sure method 
was to praise and puff up influential members... . 
He mentioned the topic of the committee meeting, using 
it as an opening to flatter me. He spoke the readily 
understood sanctimonious phrases ... Judaism... 
Judaism. ... Again he sees a chance to flatter 
me.... ‘‘Mr. Hirsch ... long known as untiring 
defender of Jewry and its enduring-through-the-ages 
ideals and culture. . . . Now with great insight Mr. 
Hirsch sees a situation that develops, menacingly. . . . 
Among ourselves, we must really keep it among our- 
selves, for no good purpose may be accomplished by 
advertising our shame . . . therefore among ourselves 
we must see as Mr. Hirsch has wisely seen, the young 
Jews of the new generation are being weaned away 
from Judaism.’’ ... Munsterkase shook his head in 
solemn distress. Mortimer suppressed a yawn... . 
The Rabbi at best was a dull fellow, outside of knowing 
how to play his particular game well. I feared he 
[ 259 | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


vould drag out the meeting and deny Munsterkase his 
coveted pinochle game. Fortunately, Dr. Lionel Crane 
arrived at this juncture. ... I had asked Crane to 
give us the benefit of his expert advice. I was playing 
a little game with Crane, seducing my enemy after the 
infallible Turkish fashion of demoralizing a dangerous 
man with a pashaship and a seraglio. I had a sneaking 
feeling that giving Crane a good job and a chance to 
mix with the higher-ups, he would play the game, and 
forget his crusade against the Professional Jew and his 
theory of intermarriage as the saving tonic for the 
Jewish race. And I wasn’t far from right, for Crane 
_ sought eagerly the job of establishing a social settle- 
ment under the patronage of the exclusive Fifth 
Avenue Temple. Besides Crane now had a wife and 
baby to support. ... Orane stood in the center with 
his back to the fire. He was getting a little bald now, 
and carried a respectable corporation. His manner 
was suave. In the past his talk used to bite into you. 
Tonight he brushed you gently. ... Yet, he had his 
old way of scaring off contradiction; he knew too well 
anything he talked about. ... Said Crane, ‘‘Are you 
aware that Christian Science, New Thought, Theo- 
sophical, Ethical Culture and Unitarian churches are 
attracting Jewish membership, particularly among the 
younger Jews?’’... Munsterkase literally pricked up 
his ears. ... Canit be! ... ‘‘Yes, they are attract- 
ing the spiritually hungry who are repelled by the 
crudities and absurdities of our own orthodox religion. 
Your temple is a reformed synagogue, it expresses 
your departure from orthodoxy. But you have kept 
to yourselves. How are the young Jews to find out 
that a Jew may worship and live in a sane, dignified 
[ 260 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


and American fashion and yet remain a Jew! You 
have got to bring them the message of your ways in 
the same way that the social settlements founded by the 
Gentiles bring them the appeal of their ways. And 
yet when you get down to it, your ways are no different 
from the refined Gentile’s. . . . Really what we are 
concerned with is to gain respect for Judaism, and to 
gain respect for Judaism we will have to dignify it. 
Our next task is to tone down our high-pitched per- 
sonalities. ... In order to win over the minds that 
have become emancipated from the dread and super- 
stition of orthodoxy you will have to show them that 
our religion is reasonable and purposeful. Purpose- 
ful; a religion that does something besides praying. 
Then there are others whom we will have to attract 
from the social side. The propertied middle classes 
like the business of going to church on Sunday morn- 
ing ; it’s something nice to do on Sunday morning when 


there’s nothing else to do. . . . So the old world syna- 
gogues in this new world are inadequate, unsatisfying, 
socially and spiritually. ... But there is yet another 


serious phase of a growing Jewish population that 
is religionless. A great number are finding their 
spiritual craving gratified in Socialism and_philo- 
sophical anarchism. I hold radicalism is an expression 
of spiritual need. ... Do you think it will improve 
our position in America when our people become known 
for radicals, enemies of existing institutions? It will 


be another cause for dislike and distrust .. . a people 
always swinging between extremes.... It is time 
that the Jew in everything he does should cease to 
make himself a marked man... .’’ 


Voices spring up in agreement.... An elderly 
[ 261 | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


man, ‘‘Who could believe it would come to this? Alas! 
A little liberty and our young abandon the religion 
their fathers died for. ... What persecution could not 
do, a little liberty does....’?... Drucker, ‘‘Mr. Hirsch 
has the right idea... .’’ Munsterkase, ‘‘The wurst 
is thot Socialism .. . owfull . . . and anarch-ismus— 
that is terrible.’? .. . A committeman on the fringe: 
‘“‘Save them from the proselytes. .. .’’ Whereupon 
Drucker dilates upon our duty to our people. He hag 
a steady flow of stereotyped phrases and bromidioms, 
and it is getting a little drawn out. After all, a prob- 
lem is only a problem, but pinochle is a fascinating 
game. Deftly I take the lead from Drucker and bring 
the meeting to practical considerations. As usual, the 
Job of getting something done is delegated to a sub- 
committee of three, in this case, Crane, Drucker and 
myself. A safe social settlement guided by the Fifth 
Avenue Temple is practically assured. Philip has 
watched the meeting with interest. He is pleased. be- 
cause Munsterkase has been impressed favorably. ... 
The committee began the confusing business of shaking 
hands and taking leave, sprinkling their farewells with 
solemn asides at the seriousness of the problem. 
Drucker shook hands with me in his sleek way, and 
asked casually if I had read the evening papers. .. 

No.... ‘The nasty headlines you missed them, Mr. 
Hirsch. Imagine my feelings as I read, ‘Poor Jewish 
Girl Marries Millionaire Sociologist’—a goy... 
what’s his name—the man who started the settlement; 
yes, Finn. Seems an aunt or two died and left him a 
few millions, so he is a subject for publicity. Look at 
the headlines—poor Jewish girl.... Who is the 
girl? . . . the paper named someone, I think her name 

[ 262 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


sounds something like his . . . yes, yes, now that you 
mention it—Esther Brinn ... scandalous.... They 
say she married him for money . . . see the implica- 
tion . . . everything against the Jew . . . she married 
a goy for his money. .. .”’ 


Crane confirmed the astounding news—‘‘Yes, took 
Finn years to win her. Something seemed to stand in 
the way. Perhaps the difference in religion. Or, 
maybe another man ... who knows. ... They were 
married quietly a few weeks ago. Ethical Culture cere- 
mony... But now that Finn has inherited millions 
the marriage has become a newspaper sensation. .. .”’ 


I slipped upstairs to my room. All was still. Mother 
nodded in her rocking chair, and I could hear the slight- 
est kind of a hum, almost like a faraway river murmur, 
probably Gretel busy in another room. ... I was very 
calm; a terrible quietness had settled on me. I took 
my hat and coat. ... Again, the trick of rapid inco- 
herent thoughts flipping about my mind. ... I looked 
at mother. She always wanted to sit in a corner, just 
as she did in Ludlow Street after father’s death. ...I 
slipped past her into the hallway. I have put on my 
hat and coat without an idea of going anywhere. It 
seems I just had to go. Where, did not matter.... 
Go. ... In the library the pinochle game has be 
gun. ... 1 make an excuse, just called away by an 
important case. ... 

Esther married! The December wind seemed to 
howl it through the side street I paced on my way 
towards the river. Esther... your Hsther—mar- 
ried ...toFinn... yourenemy.... I came to the 

| [ 263 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


granite parapet and looked on the dark river... . 
Overboard with Gretel... . I turned my back to the 
river. ... Esther. ... An electric arc light over the 
roadway shone upon a bit of white paper, shone 
whitely and reminiscently, and then was swept up 
and away on the black wing of the screaming wind. . . . 
Hsther married. . . . Do you remember .. . the white- 
ness of that bit of paper . . . do you remember, Meyer 
Hirsch, once, when you went for the second time to 
look into Esther’s window? How you pulled yourself 
up to the sill, and with your head moved the shutter 
aside, and the moon shone in for a moment. ... Esther 
asleep on the bed . . . a moonbeam upon her shoul- 
ders, and she moved ... the coverlet turned down 
and you saw the whiteness of a marble bust, a Grecian 
bust . . . and a cat rankled over the cans in the back- 
yard and you fled... . Oh, the sheer beauty of the 
Grecian bust. . . . Meyer Hirsch, you will never for- 
get. ... The wind screeched in my ears... you 
thought you would forget . . . but you will never for- 
get Esther ...her eyes...her hands... her 
quick smile . . . and her voice . . . you will never for- 
get... . Everything is rushing on, swiftly. The wind 
is sweeping the world away from me... . I am left 
alone clinging to the granite block . . . the trees rush 
past, the houses swoop away, the river rages on its 
flight from me; below me I feel a rumble; now comes 
a gaseous snort ...a freight train flees after the 
wind-borne trees, houses, river, and swirling roads... . 
The wine of her lips—one kiss . . . limbs quivering 
beneath silk . .. a whisper ... dust off the electric 
chair ... charred potatoes but sweet ...a whis- 
per ... hands tingling under my hot lips. . . 
[ 264 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


‘*What the hell is the matter with you? You made 
your choice. What’re you bellyachin’ for?...’’ 

The wind is stilled for a brooding moment. Two 
men have passed. Their pungent talk is like an answer 
to the flipping images in my mind. Be quiet. You 
made your choice. So I face the river and I hear 
the rhythmic wash, and it seems to be querying, 
‘*What the hell is the matter with you? Go home, go 
home to your Gretel. She waits and longs for you. 
Go home to your Gretel.’”’?... 

‘‘You’re givin’ me the go-by. Please, Jack, don’t 
give me the go-by....’’ | 

The wind whips up the dust and dead leaves. 

““It’s good-by for good, Margot, good-by and good 
luck.’’ 

A girl stands beside me. First she sobs, and then 
she snickers. ‘‘Where did you come from, fat daddy ?”’ 

I stand stolidly watching the river lashing its white 
hittle children hither and thither—they are like my 
ghost-thoughts tumbling and dashing and getting no- 
where. 

“‘Hey, are you ossified, fat daddy?’’ . . . She poked 
me in the ribs. I looked around as a hand came up 
to my shoulder. 

‘Say, fat daddy, sweet daddy, I wisht somebody 
would take me off on a drunk. I want to get stinkin’, 
paralyzin’, forgettin’-drunk ... forgettin’ .. . forget- 
tin’... drunk... . Did you see him gi’me me the go-by? 
He’s through. That’s all—through. Said I was a fast 
filly but no thoroughbred. Said when I got a few 
drinks in me the streak showed. ... Why didn’t I 
take Madame Mina’s advice? She’s the wise old 
owl. ... A girl like me should stick to fat guys and 

[ 265 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


old blokes, safe, nice fat daddies like you... shouldn’t 
get tangled and twisted with a young fellow... they 
gives you the go-by’’.... 

She took her hand away. She began drumming 
her fingers on the stone... . ‘‘Say, fat daddy, warm 
my hands, won’t you? Warm my hands, they’re dead 
cold. ... That’s me all over. I always ha’ got to 
have someone. ... Ican’t be alone... . I can’t stand 
bein’ cold . . . I can’t stand the gaff of just bein’... . 
I got to be doin’... .I got to keep goin’... .I got to 
have lovin’.... That’s the way, sweet daddy, I’ll 
stand clost and keep my blue fingers inside your nice 
fur, coat..”. .aim’t thal nicer turtle  bebeonee 
benny cost a nice piece of change. . . . You got a nice 
friendly fat face ... hey, but you, too, ha’ got cold 
college eyes .. . what’s a matter with you educated 
guys ... what do they do to your eyes? ... I’m 
gonna put my face on your nice soft lamb’s collar... 
that’s what I need—soft lamb . . . not killin’, draggin’ 
muscles. . . . Sweet daddy, take me home, take me 
home.’’... 

‘‘Move along, now, keep movin’, can’t loiter here all 
night; come on now, get a move on.’”’ . . . Peremptory, 
cold, cutting words hurtled at us as though out of a 
gust of the wind. The policeman swung his baton as 
he waited to see how quickly his order would be 
heeded. . . . The girl pulled my arm, saying, ‘‘Come 
on now, daddy—’’ now whispering, ‘‘see, the cops 
are gettin’ fresh now, gettin’ ready for next month 
when the new reform mayor comes in. Come along 
now, and have a good time while the goin’ is good. 
Next month the lid goes down tight.’’ . . . We moved 

[ 266 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


along the path of the little strip of parkway, and the 
heavy-footed policeman passed us. 
‘‘Daddy, seems like you was drunk. But I don’t 


smell nothin’ on ye... . You ain’t been hittin’ the 
dope, fat boy?”’ 
Pitying me... she is pitying me... this little 


creature of the crossways .. . pitying Meyer Hirsch, 
fat, ungainly, phlegmatic . . . a safe man for the little 
chit; no other woman would steal him from her... . 
Say, where is that remote yesterday of conquests? ... 

The hall door shut behind us. . . . Walking up the 
stairs she tells me little confidences in my ear, ‘‘My 
name’s Margot. You’re a Jewish lookin’ gent and so 
I’m gonna introjuce you for—let’s see—Mr. Cohen, 
that’s a Jewish name like Jones is one of our names. 
This place is Madame Mina’s. She likes Jews. They 
was good to her. There was three old fellows what 
owned shares in her like in a stock corporation. They 
couldn’t afford each one to keep his own woman, and 
they wasn’t the kind to knock aroun’, so they took 
shares-like in Mina. Now she’s old and she keeps a 
nice respectable call flat. No joint.’’.. 

.. . Margot settled me in an armchair, and perched 
herself with ingenue childishness upon my knee. 

‘¢Now then, have them fetch a couple quarts of cham- 
pagne,’’ I suggested. 

‘‘Say, you’re a regular sport,’’ said Margot, admir- 
ingly, ‘‘I figured you for a white sport... . Cham- 
pagne ... for a giddy drunk .. . first the world am 
dark and dreary ... but wealthy water brings the 
rosy dawn... champagne.’’... 

The colored maid brought a cooler with champagne. 
Margot put a little screen around the armehair which 

[ 267 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


gave us a little air of privacy, but only an air. ... 
But it is pleasant here. ... Margot is so engaging, 
winsome and disingenuous that she charms away dis- 
turbing thoughts and memories. Margot does not live 
in life, she plays at living. She is casual, gracious; 
and life just happens to her. She follows naturally 
the trend of the next happening, and so goes on; one 
moment broken-hearted, and again blithe and gay .. . 
she adorns the idling hour. . . Her eyes are deeply 
blue, and her nose a bit of a turned up thing; she has 
boyishly rounded cheeks, a small living mouth, good 
teeth, and a tiny perfect chin. Her throat arches 
slenderly, and her chest and waist are like a supple 
lad’s. . . . She tilts the glass against my lips and bids 
me quaff long and deep, promising a rosy awakening 
from ‘‘your dumps.’’ .. . ‘‘You don’t have to tell me 
your real name,’’ says she, ‘‘but it’s more chummy- 
like to call you by your pet name, you know, somethin’ 
the boys call you... .’’... Involuntarily, I utter, 
‘*Haunch—’’ and catch myself . . . ‘‘Hunch,’’ she re- 
peated as the word of her understanding; ‘‘hunch, 
that’s a good handle. You must be lucky. You get 
the hunch of what to pull off. Good hunch. Hunch. 
Hunch, that’s what I’ll monicker you. Hunchy- 
boy... . Say ain’t this grand stuff... hits you in 
the right spot.’’.. 


Tam quite drunk .. . my own self .. . my past... 
everything up to this hour seems to have detached it- 
self from my consciousness and flown away. ... Iam 
happy. ... I have taken myself out of the cellar of 
my hulk... and I quit holding back—I let myself 
sail in life—TI am a little fuddled and uncertain on my 

[{ 268 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


feet. . . . Someone has come to help with Margot on 
the other side. ... They take me into a half-dark 
room ...a bed sways before me... but they man- 
age to let me slide onto the bed . . . then I remember 
that at home they will fret and worry... . Gretel 
will . . . and I grunt, ‘‘Margot—good girl—telephone 
—gotta telephone home—waiting—worrying—’’ She 
staggers a bit, pulls herself together, speaking thickly: 
“Damn right—can’t have ’em waitin’ and wor- 


ryin’.... Mikeen, hel-lup him up wi’ye, take him 
over the phone... got to call up... wife or sump- 
oe anumpin’....., . waitin’. .\,. worrilan?:.°.'. he’s 


a white guy ... hel-lup him to—’’ They sat me on 
the floor and put the telephone in my hand. With a 
great effort I concentrated on the number.... 
Quickly came the anxious voice of Gretel’s, as from 
another world, another existence. ... I managed to 
speak and conveyed to her... . ‘‘Case ... would 
take all night... would call in the morning again’’... 
and I heard her speak anxiously in Yiddish, something 
or other about being careful of myself and I slumped 
over... . Forgettin’—drunk—— 


1 269] 


IT 

A voice kept at me, began to percolate in as a vague 
whisper, and then worked clearly into my mind... . 
‘“When do you have to get up . . . when do you have 
to vet up???) 3.4 

I opened my eyes and for a moment or two was 
puzzled by the unfamiliar face peering at me. . . . 

‘“‘Are you pretty groggy, sweet daddy? I’m doin’ 
time with a hang-over myself .. . butit’sabeaut.... 
Wait now, sit pretty, and I’m gonna fetch a pitcher of 
ice water, and then I’m gonna hand you your breakfast 
—a large pot of demi-tasse.’’... 

Oh, my head. Little sharp things are picking at my 
head in a million places. . 

‘‘Hey there, Hunchy, don’t guzzle that ice water so 
fast, want to give yourself a chill and heartburn? ... 
Thataway ... easy.’?... And she rested my head 
on her breast... .‘‘No go to the well again... 
slow, now.’’ . . . She put my head back on the pillow, 
tucked the sheets under my chin, and then kissed me 
on the tip of the nose, the last being a trick seemingly 
peculiar to Margot... . ‘‘Listen, Hunchy-boy, have 
you got a job to go to or sumpin’? Thatawhy I’ve 
been razzin’ you like a puppy at the shoulder of a 
Saint Bernard. . . . Now tell your little sweetie, what 
time you got to make it. It’s clost to nine now.’’... 

“‘Thanks little girl, I’ll have to get up pretty 

[ 270 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


soon. ... L’ll rest a few minutes . . . get myself to- 
CCM ae 


‘*All right, you look kinda shot to pieces. .. . Now 
I’ll go and make the coffee.’’ . . . I looked after her, 
and saw she staggered a little. . . . I called out, ‘‘Say 


you ought to be lying down yourself—’’ . . . And she 
answered cheerily, ‘‘I’ll say so—but I’m a little sticker, 
another name for sucker, that’s the way I’m made. . . 
I want you to know, Hunchy,’’ she stopped to say at 
the doorway, ‘‘this ain’t no panel joint, no shake 
down crowd. I’ve done a little rough work in my 
time ... just for fun ... but Mina don’t stand for 
nothin’ rough. ...I checked your bankroll with 
Mina. . . . But boy, oh boy, you need that bankroll for 
the check you gonna get. Wait till you see the bad 
news for all that champin you slewed . . . but it was 
a gran’ little party ... and I don’t care... Daddy 
is rich, ain’t you?’’... and she skipped away. 
Madame Mina came into the room with Margot. She 
had my pocketbook in her hand and gave it to me with 
a little memorandum for the drinks. Madame Mina 
had something on her mind and she came to the point 
with German abruptness. . . . Said she, ‘‘I looked in 
your pocketbook. You understand that. I went over 
with Margot to make sure how much was in it. I see 
you are a lawyer, and I got a case for a lawyer.’’... 
Wherewith Margot, pipingly, broke in, ‘‘Look alive 
now Hunch, we’re gonna throw you some good busi- 
ness.’’ ... Madame Mina continued, ‘‘ Downstairs is 
the janitor woman, a widow, she’s got one girl, only 
sixteen. She’s been away for four days. She was 
away with the iceman’s girl. All evening the mother 
was after her Jenny to tell where she’s been and what’s 
[ 271 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


she been doing. . . . A millionaire . . . you know the 
reformer . . . yes, that’s the name, an old fellow——”? 

When I heard the details I got up with alacrity. 
Here was the prospect of a big killing. I told Madame 
Mina that I would have a man work on the case im- 
mediately. In the meantime she must see that the 
girl does not leave the house. .. . 

Margot helped me gather my scattered things and 
put myself together, presentably, meantime, carrying 
on a one-sided racy conversation. 

_ Later I watched her as she stood by the window, 
marvelling at her boyish form now draped in a diapha- 
nous pale green kimono tied with a girdle around the 
hips. Her bright hair fell in ripples about her face 
and shoulders. . . . She appeared to be lost in a little 
reverie, a sort of child’s absentmindedness. .. . But 
when it came time to say good-bye, she again put her 
face upon the Persian lamb collar of my overcoat, and 
spoke in a wistful though detached way, ‘‘Wonder, 
Hunchy, if I’m gonna see you again.”? .. . And I re- 
membered that she was my chit of the crossways and 
that I owed her an earnest.... ‘‘A fur coat for 
Margot, how would that hit you?”’.. . ““A home run, 
Hunchy.’’ . . . And I told her where to go and select 
a coat after her own heart. . . . She just looked at me. 
Then she got up on her toes and kissed me on the tip 
of the nose... . ‘‘You mean it, you ain’t kiddin’ 
me. ...1 said you was white . . . shake, Hunchy, and 
thanks ... but lookahere, daddy . . . you don’t think 
you’re buyin’ me... you ain’t buyin’ me... . I’m 
promisin’ nothin’. I am myself—Margot ... got to 
keep doin’... and goin’... and if that Jack with 
[272 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


hunky white teeth should come aroun’... well I ain’t 
promisin’ nothin’.”’?... 


There in the queerly lighted room, where sputtered 
a low gas jet, and, a black blind, three quarters drawn, 
was at odds with the pushing, strong morning sunlight, 
Margot, in the changing shadows and glare as of a 
wood, seemed elfin, indeed a will-o’-the-wisp love 
sprite. ... 


[ 273 ] 


Tit 


The office staff looked nervous and fidgety when I 
came in late in the morning. Maxie flew into my pri- 
vate chamber the minute he heard I had come in... . 
Gretel had been making frantic inquiries concerning 
me; apparently my muffled abrupt message at an eerie 
hour of the night had mystified and worried her. ... 

“On a bat... or ona case, Mike?’’... 

‘‘Both, Max.’’ 

He smiled as he regarded my pasty face and blood- 
shot eyes. ... I called for our expert runner, Lurie 
the Rat, a labor spy and an expert blackmailer.... 
I outlined the case to Maxie and the Rat... . With 
staccato clearness Maxie instructed the Rat. ... ‘‘Get 
both girls. Stick with them. Let them tell their stories 
to each other. See that they agree with each other. 
Don’t open your trap till they have talked themselves 
out. Then line up their stories over and over again 
until they never can forget that that’s the story. Then 
write it down—in their own language—you’re a notary, 
—swear them—but don’t dare use legal phraseology. 
Don’t stultify and paralyze your witnesses with legal 
words. Be careful, Lurie, you amateur lawyers love 
legal shmooserie ... avoid it like a plague... 
always have your affidavits in your witnesses’ own lJan- 
guage... slang... filth... everything... then 
you can’t go wrong. A witness can’t go back on his 
own pet terms.’’ 

Maxie never interviews witnesses, especially in cases 
where blackmail may be charged. None could accuse 

[ 274 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


him first-hand. But he knew how to instruct his wit- 
ness-handlers. Our rats knew how to whip witnesses 
into shape.... 


Lurie was despatched with a second runner who was 
to bring the girls’ sworn statements back to the office 
while Lurie stuck to the girls. ... 


The runner in good time returned with the girls’ 
own stories. ...In a few minutes two plainclothes 
shakedown specialists from Police Headquarters re- 
ported and asked to hear the town’s latest dirt... . 
They smiled in anticipation of the nice fat drippings of 
a millionaire on the spit. ... They were instructed to 
go to the accused’s home, ask for him, and of course 
they would be referred to his lawyers. The detectives 
were then to go to his lawyers and intimate that the 
charges had been made but that a certain law firm had 
the accusers’ depositions . . . and then leave the rest 
to Hirsch & Freund... big lawyers are our meat.... 

The news came in that Judge Martin Hussing of the 
Superior Criminal Court had died last night. Maxie 
regretted that the Governor was a Republican; other- 
wise I might get the appointment. ... And he put a 
thought in my mind. . . . The millionaire was a promi- 
nent reformer and high in the national councils of the 
Republican Party... . 

I waited alone in my office. A fur dealer called up— 
‘sis it all right’’—‘‘what’s that’’—‘‘a fur coat for a 
young lady’’—for a moment I could not understand— 
my mind was filled with the vacant judgeship which 
could not be filled by an election now but by the Gov- 

[ 275 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


ernor’s designation—‘‘what did you say’’—‘‘name— 
Margot’’—‘*‘Yes ... yes... give her a good coat... 
no bill. . . . I’ll be up and give you the cash . . . yes, 
Mortie:. 6) that’s rieht 70. 

Now I considered the judgeship . . . seemed to stick 
in my crop. Now I know... the judgeship is the 
price for squashing the case... . 

An august name is announced—the former governor, 
who had refused clemency for my boys... . I guess 
he has come about the millionaire’s case. . . . He beats 
around the bush in an elegant fashion, but I remember 
his brusque treatment of me and I call him to time and 
tell him to come down to brass tacks. .. . He hems... 
‘‘would be unfortunate ...a really great man . 
philanthropist . . . humanitarian . . . no good served 
by prosecution and publicity ... no good at all... 
some matters best if quieted . . . for good of public 
morals . . . of course, girls and their people properly 
compensated ...and the lawyers ...and de- 
tectives .. . the same good accomplished . . . terrible 
warning to man...amistake.’’... 

‘*Good citizenship should not condone wrong-doing.”’ 
I have repeated his memorable bromidiom, but he is too 
wrapped up in his worry over his client and personal 
friend to detect ironic shading. . . . He takes me seri- 
ously and starts over again his lame extenuations. .. . 
So I come to the point. 

‘*Listen here, Mr. Ex-governor, it isn’t going to cost 
your friend one cent to squash this ease, not acent. .. . 
He'll get a retraction and exoneration in the girls’ own 
handwriting. . . . I will pay the hush money to their 
parents and the detectives ... but I expect a piece 
of writing in return ...a Christmas present from 

[ 276 | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


your Governor—a certificate of appointment naming 
Meyer Hirsch to fill the unexpired term of Judge 
Hussing. ... Meyer Hirsch, Judge of the Superior 
Criminal Court.’’ 

He was so taken aback that he half rose from his 
chair. 

‘¢Make the next train to Albany and you ought to be 
back the first thing in the morning with the—appoint- 
ment. It will give your governor a chance to show 
what a sweet believer he is in one of your pet planks 
in your platform—a non-partisan judiciary. A Re- 
publican governor appoints a regular Democrat, Meyer 
Hirsch, whose knowledge, experience and sterling 
character so well fit him for the Superior Criminal 
Court. Where the judiciary is concerned the Governor 
shows a fine non-partisanship. It will be something 
in his favor besides doing a favor to big Republican 
contributors.’’ 

He tried to talk me out of my idea, tactfully men- 
tioning a neat sum, a staggering sum, but I said curtly, 
‘‘Take it or leave it, I’ll wait until eleven tomorrow 
morning.’’? . . . I opened the door for him as an un- 
mistakable cue that the interview was concluded... . 
He shook hands pleasantly and said he was leaving for 
Albany on the next train. . 


[277 ] 


IV 


Philip is still an early riser. . . . The next morning 
I was awakened by loud rapping on my door, and then 
Philip rushed in with a newspaper in his hand. He 
cried, ‘‘You scamp, why didn’t you tell me before? 
Don’t you think my future father-in-law would be de- 
lighted to know he is marrying his daughter into a 
judge’s family?’’ . . . I demanded to know what he 
was talking about. . . . Philip waved the paper, ex- 
claiming, ‘‘Here it is on the front page. . . . Governor 
Appoints Hirsch to Superior Court. . . . Republican 
Executive Designates Democrat. . . . Victory for Non- 
Partisan Judiciary—Hirsch A Well Known Practi- 
tioner—A Leader of National Jewish Societies’? .. . 
I grabbed the paper eagerly and saw it was a mid- 
night despatch from Albany. A certain man must 
have been so importunate that he had had the anounce- 
ment made at once to reassure both himself and 
AALS aN: 

By the time I got to the office the place was jammed 
with people come to congratulate me. Big Jim came 
in to find out what the hell it was all about and was 
1 a turncoat and was I going to double-cross him after 
all he done... . I took him into Maxie’s office, ex- 
plained my strategy and received his congratulations 
on my quick thinking. Judge Hussing was a Democrat 
and to have had his place taken by a severe Republican 
would have hurt our popular prestige. ... The ex- 
governor was in my private office. ... He was my 
warmest congratulator and well wisher. ... Now I 

J 278 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


was a judge... he kotowed . . . the whole world 
seemed to be kotowing. ... Maxie came in grinning 
and hugged me. . . . The world never heard of a cer- 
tain case. I saw to it that everybody concerned was 
amply satisfied . . . and in this wise I became Honor- 
able Meyer Hirsch, Justice, Superior Criminal Court. 


[279 ] 


Vv 


A formula of polite nothings has given me a stupid 
fifteen minutes. .. . I try my best to make conversa- 
tion... . Once more begins the tiresome formula: 
‘‘Really ... howkind . . . thank you... very good 
of you ...do come again.”?... An awkward hia- 
tus... . An early spring breeze stirs the curtains. 
I take in the rich-looking room of Philip’s Riverside 
Drive residence. He has just returned from his honey- 
moon, and is now established in a modern duplex apart- 
ment which he has furnished with distinguished taste 
and elegance. . . . The former Miss Munsterkase, now 
my Aunt Josephine, received me with get graciousness, 
which, I soon observed, was a drilled-in, learned-by- 
rote system of saying something. . . . I daresay had 
pert Margot been present she would have sized up the 
situation succinctly—‘‘nobody home.’’ Tt came to me 
as I watched the expression of her face that Mrs. Philip 
Gold was like Dopie Ikie Schneider, but she had the 
advantage of thorough drilling in how to keep up a 
semblance of talk. No wonder she was let go to a Rus- 
sian Jew. ... After all, I consoled myself, it wasn’t 
a wife that Phil wanted... hardly mattered that she 
was mentally below par . . . she was a means sue Co a 
stepping stone. ... 

At last Phil comes to my relief. After Josephine 
left the room I could almost hear the irrepressible 
Margot exclaim, ‘‘Some sap, but—some sap.” . . , 
That little red-head with her zestful charm sticks in 
my mind. . . . I'll have to contrive to see her without 

[ 280 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


reflecting on my judicial dignity. ... A zestful little 
thing spicing the cup of life... . 

Phil makes a wry face at his wife’s retreating back. 
He draws near, and says with a twisted smile—‘‘ Well, 
Judge, give the verdict. Speak up. You and I never 
deceive each other. Say it, Philip Gold’s wife is noth- 
ing to look at and no one to talk to.... A wife... 
an admission ticket . . . everybody’s cousin. . . . I’ve 
picked the prize moron .. . hasn’t she got a lovely 
moronish profile a? 

I grinned. Philip made another wry face. .. . 
‘‘Oh—that honeymoon. ... One thing is certain ... 
After all, honeymoons serve their purpose.... One 
thing is certain—my wife never travels with me 
again.... The bargain is made: that’s done with. 
She has a husband and I have an admission ticket. 
Henceforth, our lives go their separate ways. .. . 
Remember, Meyer, sometime they may bring a wife 
poisoner before you. Be easy with him, poor 
fellow.’’ 

Philip took me to sit in the window embrasure. The 
river was opaque in the April twilight. Shining motor 
cars sped by. The lawns glistened greenly sleek, and 
the trees lifted their clean limbs to show their new 
little leaves. I watched the boats floating their pen- 
nants of smoke and steam, and saw the river turn a 
gleaming blue under the changing sky. Philip, too, 
looked on in silence and then remarked, ‘‘A little dif- 
ferent from the view on Ludlow Street, eh, Meyer? ... 
By the way, Meyer, your uncle has an ambition, and 
you will have to help along. . . . What would you think 
of Philip Gold as ambassador to Turkey—seeing that’s 
the only ambassadorship open toa Jew?... Picture 

[ 281 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


it, will you—His Excellency, Philip Gold, Plenipoten- 
tiary toIslam. . . . A great world opens up before me, 
a new world, greater interests, world problems. .. . 
But I won’t get there by belonging to your high-binder 
party. You fellows have a good system for local elec- 
tions, but you don’t stand a show to win the presidency 
again. We manufacturers and industrialists know 
what butters our bread... . Tama high tariff Repub- 
lican, and with an eye to what I want I shall become a 
large contributor to the national campaign fund. Hmu- 
lating your excellent example, I am organizing the 
Garment Manufacturers’ Republican Club. Papa-in- 
law knows what I am after, and he and the royal family 
are eminently delighted. Banking and department 
store influences will count a great deal. Fancy my sur- 
prise when I found that father-in-law had presented 
me with a handsome dowry, which dowry I shall drop 
into the political pot. ... Now, your honor, this is 
where you come into the plot. Your distinguished con- 
duct on the bench will be an aidto me. If you are going 
to be a typical Tammany judge you'll smell up all the 
works. The royal family will be distressed. Here’s 
your chance: you have been selected as a non-partisan 
Jurist. Play the part to perfection. Avoid anything 
that may turn into a scandal. An outstanding record 
will compel the party to name you for higher office.’’ 

‘We have considered that already, dear uncle—am- 
bassador,’’ I told him. ‘‘In fact I have won over Big 
Jim and the other Big Guns in Fourteenth Street to 
leave me off dirty work. Itis easy. The district attor- 
ney simply does not assign such cases to me where 
political favoritism is necessary. I am beginning to 
shine out as a judge that deals severely with criminals. 

[ 282 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


Tomorrow I am going to impose a record sentence on 
a burglar. The game is to make the poor slobs pay for 
the leniency we show the politically favored. If you 
have no friends in our court you are given a long ride 
im the black maria. Also I am becoming a learned 
advocate of the probation system—a cloak for leniency 
where the bosses need it. Besides, Maxie analyzes 
cases in advance, and tells me when it is safe to throw 
acase. In short, 1am grooming myself for the mayor- 
alty candidacy. Our party needs a man with a good 
public record to minimize the reformers’ hulla- 
baloo. . . . Behold, Your Excellency, Meyer Hirsch, 
Mayor of New York.’’ 

We both laughed. Philip’s face soon turned serious. 
And he asked, abruptly, ‘‘And Gretel—what are you 
doing about her?’’ 

‘“Well, Phil, I really—well a 

“*T can see you’ve done nothing, and don’t know what 
to do. I think it’s a case where someone will have to 
doit for you. ... Don’t you see how an advantageous 
marriage will help along your plan?’’.. . 

Suddenly it was night. All the colors and shapes, 
with their shadows and contrasts, were swallowed up. 

‘“The time has come to settle that matter. Go away 
to the country club for the week end. I’ll see Gretel. 
Financially, she’ll have nothing to worry about. Ill 
satisfy her on that score. Then I shall point out to her 
how decently you’ve treated her all these years and 
where her duty lies. I think I’ll make her see the light, 
and save you an unpleasant scene.’’?... I pulled the 
bar and shut the window. The wind was blowing up 
cold. I thought the cold air made me shiver. .. ., 
Philip pushed the point, mercilessly,—‘‘ What do you 

[ 283 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


say, there’s only one way—decide and do it.’’... I 
sat still for a moment or two; then I heard someone 
walk into the room. Aunt Josephine’s screechy voice 
asked, ‘‘Really, why sit in the dark?’’... I touched 
Philip’s arm and said, ‘‘ All right, do it.” ... 


[284 7 


SEVENTH PERIOD 


Cesar once, seeing some wealthy strangers 
at Rome, carrying up and down with them in 
their arms and bosoms young puppy-dogs and 
monkeys, embracing and making much of 
them, took occasion not unnaturally to ask 
whether the women in their country were not 
used to bear children.’ 

PLUTARCH. 


SEVENTH PERIOD 
I 


Philip is dead . . . dead and buried. 

Gretel . . . better say Gertrude ... she who used 
to be Gretel . . . now that she is my wife won’t even 
let me call her Gretel . . . was never a hypocrite. 
Ever since a memorable day seven years ago, she has 
hated Uncle Philip. . . . Today she went to the funeral 
as my wife, not as a mourner; nor did she as much as 
once dab her eyes with a stuffy handkerchief for ap- 
pearance’s sake. I think she enjoyed the dull knell of 
spadeful after spadeful of earth and pebbles beating 
upon the coffin. She heard the Rabbi’s touching eulogy 
with composed features. Under her arm she held 
mother, supporting her to her side. As for mother, 
I believe Philip’s death opened up the wells of grief 
for father. ... On our way home in the automobile 
Gretel said pointblank that a just retribution had over- 
taken the ruthless Philip. . . . Primitive, natural in 
all her emotions and reactions. . . . And mother mur- 
mured, ‘‘God overlooks no one . . . no one.’’? . . 
They agree in everything. Never dida POEher dite 
and daughter-in-law live in such perfect accord as did 
mother and Gretel. . . . Strange . . . strange in- 
deed . . . mother hadn’t talked with Gretel in all the 
years until the crucial day when Philip had me sneak 
off to the country. He tried to buy off Gretel. ... 

We have just come home from the funeral. ... It 
has been a trying day on my nerves: better to say a 

[ 287 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


trying day on my avoirdupois. Seven sedentary years 
in the upholstered judicial swivel chair and rich living 
have made me nigh massive. The first Haunch Paunch 
and Jowl cartoon was prophetic. ... So I sank into 
the armchair facing the window to rest myself, watch- 
ing the placid river. The afternoon is on the wane. 
I study the oversize busses crowding aside the puny 
motor cars. ... Childrenromp.. . but there are so 
few children. . . . I see plenty of dogs dawdling slack 
leashes. ... Sickening: I wish Gretel wouldn’t make 
such an ado over that miserable mutt.... There is 
one thing I thought of at Philip’s grave. ... Long 
ago... that dim time of dreaming and striving... 
he had said we would make ourselves notable ancestors 
to be looked back to ... ancestors... towhom... 
lap dogs . . . lap dogs who whined if they were made 
to walk across the floor. . . . Here’s Gretel. And 
Josephine, dear Aunt Josephine of the thirty-two quar- 
ters escutcheon, adores a Chinese chow which she ear- 
ries upon her fiat bosom, and deifies a great Persian 
cat which sits on a shrine of soft silken cushions. ... 
Cancer of the stomach—that is what did for 
Philip. ... Social climbing, fortune building, politi- 
cal scheming for an ambassadorship were all thrown 
in the discard and he began a new deal in life, a stub- 
born combat with the malignant, pitiless disease. 
Philip lost with a smile. ... The last days in the 
sickroom: Philip lying like a spent monarch in a high 
four-poster, a medieval bed he had picked up in an 
auction in London; the Persian cat with a becalmed 
Buddah expression at the foot of the bed; and the chow 
snivelled on a silk rug under a chair. I suppose Aunt 
Josephine didn’t quite make it all out: that is why she 
[ 288 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


was all over the sickroom with her little gods. The 
nurses wanted to put them out, but Philip’s sense of 
humor had it that he would die mocked by the crowning 
symbols of his success. .. . Towards the end he was 
attended by Dr. Hymie Rubin. The great specialists 
with their fabulous bills had cut and radiumed to the 
tune of tumbling doubloons. Philip did not cavil at 
stupendous fees; for that matter he declared he would 
gladly give his storehouse of gold—with his moronish 
wife and the worshipped dog and cat for good measure. 
But the priceless surgeons said—too late: they could 
not repair the digestive engine after it had been 
knocked to pieces by years of neglect and abuse. ... 
So he sent for Hymie—for conversation. He wanted 
to be taunted, taunted, to die fighting. More, he asked 
for Avrum Toledo. He wanted to have it out with 
him for the last time. But Avrum was somewhere ir 
the lumber camps of the Northwest. ... ‘‘Let me 
die . . . let medie lulled by the anodynes of the dream- 
stupefied.’”?... A satyr’s head: Philip’s; his bone- 
gray hair rumpled into puffs like horns; a carved face 
with pointed nose and sharp chin. . 

Maxie came to draw the will. 

‘‘Have you any particular bequests you wish to 
make?’’ asked Max in a businesslike voice. 

The satyr grinned ...mayhap he winced, but he 
intended it to be a grin. His voice asked banteringly 
of Hymie Rubin, ‘‘ Little doctor, you say what shall be 
done with the filthy lucre . . . you know, the blood 
money: i 

Hymie sat down on the bed. Musingly he stroked 
his beard and his features relaxed in a smile to meet 
the laughing mask before him. His nasal tones hung 

[ 289 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


lazily in the still air. The chow uttered a tiny squeal 
and the royal cat majestically scratched an ear. 

‘*T believe you capable of anything, my superman,”’ 
said Hymie; ‘‘anything: even to the extent of taking 
my advice. May I ask you to be consistent with the 
capitalists who have been your models? . . . You capi- 
talists are unconscious scientists. You are vivisection- 
ists. You experiment on humans. You spend your life 
keeping creatures on the rack. Then when you die you 
devote your money for research—cures for the devils 
you have half-killed. So I ask you to be consistent. 
Leave your money to found a sanitarium in the Adiron- 
dacks for those suffering from the shop sickness—a 
sanitarium for consumptive garment workers.”’ 

‘‘A merry jest, Dr. Hymie, a merry jest. You want 
me to die like all weaklings—afraid, contrite, kneeling 
to the confessor. You misjudge me, Hymie. Do you 
think I’d die knowing the worms would gloat over my 
cadaver? You think I’d give them a chance to say that 
Philip Gold became conscience-stricken in the fear of 
death and sought to make amends for the wrongs he 
had done? I have done no wrong. I have been life. 
I lived after the plan of life... . No, no charity will 
keep the worms, worms. Let them evolve through 
suffering.”?... 

He left everything to me, saying that I was the only 
one for whom he had ever had any affection. But he 
remembered to rebuke me for having let myself get in 
so deep with Gretel... . 

I drowsed a bit, but was annoyed by the dog come 
snuffling at my shins. . . . Yes, I should tell how Gretel 
came to be my wife; Gretel, the last person in the world 
I thought I would marry. ... I went to the country 

[ 290 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


club . . . a shadow seemed to linger near me, a fore- 
boding. ... The next day Philip telephoned ...a 
snag ... better come back. . . . Gretel was in a 
chair, crying. Mother stood at her side, comforting 
her. It looked so queer. Philip stood looking out of 
the window. When I came into the room Gretel rose 
and looked at me searchingly. Philip came forward 
with his hands stuffed in his pockets. For several 
seconds no one spoke: it seemed the longest time. 
Finally Philip said, smartingly— 

‘‘A fine thanks you’re getting for being decent. 
Treat them like dogs and then they’ll expect nothing 
better. Do you know what she’s done? She’s black- 
mailing you, holding you up! ‘Threatens a breach 
of promise suit . . . some kind of legal entangle- 
ment ... going to claim you’re her common law 
husband. ... After I spoke to her she rushed out of 
here. Where do you think,she went? Went where 
everybody with a kick goes—to that Finn and his 
settlement. Told him everything. And he said he 
would take her case. ... Wecould beat that... but 
what more has she done? She has won over your 
mother. Your mother is your worst enemy. She backs 
up this woman. Says she will go into court and tell 
that you and Gretel have been living as man and wife 
all these years. Whew! What a fine scandal—_— Go 
ahead, Meyer. I warned you. Now go ahead and see 
if at this stage of the game you can talk them out of 
their madness. I have offered twenty-five thousand 
dollars a 

*‘t don’t want money,’’ said Gretel, like a flash 
from flint. 

Finn... Esther came into my mind. ... Esther 
[ 291 } 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


. . She knows all.... Finn, my enemy, has been 
given this weapon against me. ... Mother... back- 
ing up Gretel ...mother.. 

‘*T don’t want money.’’ Her voice was tired. 

‘*Ts it true—Gretel, tell me, is it true——’’ 

(a4 Yes. 93 

I felt exhausted and dropped into a chair. Gretel 
made a quick move towards me, but held back when she 
saw my frowning face. But mother came and touched 
my arm, saying, ‘‘You hear, you have not been as a 
child tome. Now in my old age, show me that you will 
obey me as a child. Show me in my ending days that | 
you can do a fineness for me. Marry Gretel. She has 
been as a wife to you. You told me yourself that you 
found her a good girl. Who knows better than I how 
good and true she has been to you these many years? 
It is right that you should marry her. I will not see a 
sin done to a good girl. Do not heed that Philip. Let 
him rage, let him storm, let him tear down the walls, 
and bring the roof upon my head. I will stand by her. 
I will tell the truth. It is the right——”’ 

‘“There she goes with that damned respectableness,”? 
Philip snarled. 

“‘T would talk with you, Meyer, but let Philip go out. 
I would talk to you alone,’’ Gretel pleaded. 

I looked at Philip and he withdrew. 

*“You look tired,’’ Gretel ventured to say. 

My voice was husky. ‘‘Why did you go down there— 
down to that place?’’ I asked. 

‘I was afraid of everyone. How Philip tore at my 
heart. I needed someone. You were not here. He 
said you would not come back until I was gone and had 
signed the papers your partner made out. I was in 

[ 292 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


terror. Did you think those years were as nothing 
to me—to me? Did you not think I loved you?... 
Oh, he went at me so. I was insane. I used to hear 
the people say that Finn kept a secret and was a friend 
of people in distress. Ihave no onehere. Mother said 
Philip wanted you to marry someone else. The right 
was that I should be the one to marry you. Your own 
mother says so.... Oh, Meyer, and does not your 
heart say a 

She choked and cried. Then came a wild burst of 
passion. 

‘‘Nothing will stop me, nothing. That Philip has 


made me so afraid.... Whatis money! All those 
years burned into my heart. ... I am not to be con- 
sidered. ... My life... my feelings . . . my burst- 
ing heart. ... Whatismoney!... Thereis nothing 
in life but you; I live in you, Meyer, in you. . . . What 
is money. ... I better go and kill myself... . I will, 
Twill. ... Meyer, will you think of our love life these 
years? ... Marry me, Meyer....Iam afraid... 
afraid . .. oh, he made me so afraid. . . . It was like 


trying to tear everything away from me ... to be left 
with nothing to live for. . . . Marry me——’’ 

_ Her words rang out in the room, clanged in my 
head. 

But mother was the hardest of the two. She stood 
like a stone wall against Philip’s importunities... 
and mine she silenced... . 

What was to be done? An open scandal would be 
terrible. It is unthinkable. ... 

So, I married Gretel. 

How the world talked! There was no open comment. 
It was a still scandal, a gaseous undercurrent poisoning 

[ 293 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the roots of my political tree. I was done, politically. 
But I clung to the judgeship. ... I was addicted to 
power and honor. ... I clung to the judgeship. ... 
When my appointed term was over and I came up for 
election, my party made a deal with the Republicans, 
securing their endorsement, thus avoiding the mud- 


slinging of an open campaign. ... The still scandal 
went through the city ...a judge of a high court 
married his servant girl . . . had been living with 


her all these years. Garnishings made the tale a 
prettier one. 

Society was out of the question. Gretel was rather 
crude. She spoke a self-learned English of many 
peculiarities. A former servant girl and mistress 
could not pass muster in the strict society of the Ger- 
man Jews. Besides, Philip and Gretel could not so 
much as bear the sight of each other. 


[294] 


II 


So here we live in Allrightniks Row, Riverside Drive. 
The newly rich Russian, Galician, Polish and KRouma- 
nian Jews have squeezed out the German Jews and 
their Gentile neighbors. Great elevator apartment 
structures are being put up to house the clamoring 
Allrightniks. 'The Ghetto called anyone who was 
well off—one who is all right in this world, that is well 
fixed, an Allrightnik. We moved in the world of 
Allrighiniks. 

Allrightniks: plump and fat women who blandished 
the extremes of the latest styles in clothes, trying to 
outvie one another; and were never seen without a 
blinding array of diamonds on ears, breasts, fingers 
and arms ... the men were always business men— 
business was their cult, hobby, pastime—their life. 
Did they collect in little groups of a social evening, then 
they discussed the fascinating details of some specula- 
tion or enterprise. They interpreted life in the terms 
of moneymaking. Their faces were puffed and sleekly 
pale; their bellies stuck out as the show windows of 
their prosperity. Invariably you found them chewing 
fat cigars; their middle fingers ablaze with many- 
karated solitaires: eye-openers. . .. The women 
played poker in the afternoon and in the evening came 
together to gossip and flaunt clothes and diamonds, 
mentioned significantly what they paid for this and 
that, complained of their servants, to whom they left 
the care of their children, and told risque stories: 
their talk was a hysteric din, and their laughter un- 

[ 295 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


restrained . . . while, in the adjoining room, their 
husbands, loud-mouthed and coarse-humored, gathered 
to play stud poker or pinochle for high stakes. The 
game was not the thing: they were charmed by the 
gamble. Their craze for speculation expressed itself in 
steep gambling. Once the play began their faces set 
in grim lines, and they attended passionately to the 
fluctuations of chance with such skill and craft and 
bluff as they could command. . .. High-priced, vivid- 
hued automobiles with liveried chauffeurs helped to 
blazon their success. . . . Having given themselves 
over wholly to wealth, then show was the only sign of 
their existence. ... Show. Show. ... Even in their 
charity. Charity was another outlet for display. Pom- 
pous, righteous beneficing.... Show. ... Even to 
the marrying off of their children. Spectacular 
matches, big money in alliances with big money, money 
the standard of this special aristocracy. . . . Dollar- 
land. ... Gretel, after living a shutaway, dubious 
role, now revelled in the extravaganza-life of this All- 
righimk society... . And Allrightnik religion was a 
bumptious holding forth in swell temples and syna- 
gogues. ... And they took to their bosoms canines 
and griffins, aping the so-called swell society of the 
goywm. 

I am bitter and sore this evening.... The gang, 
who came in as impoverished immigrants unused to 
wealth, were made dizzy and giddy by sudden 
riches. . . . But I wondered about the Hast Side. ... 
It was not the same place I knew as a boy, a young 
man....tI had lost contact with that world. ... 
Crane said we were always swinging between ex- 
tremes: a pendulum of emotion. . . . In the Hast Side 

[ 296 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


the radicals were making headway. Were they bring- 
ing spiritual fare for the spiritually hungry? .. . 
Who would believe fifteen years ago that the Socialists 
would carry one of my assembly strongholds as they 
did last election? . . . Money chasers and dream 
chasers. ... In the Ghetto there was a large, grow- 
ing, fanatic cult of intellectualism . . . a fine-frenzied 
idealism .. . art, literature, music, social science and 
politics in the pure meaning of the word—calling the 
new generation ...to me a strange generation, so 
different, so alien to my understanding. ... The new 
generation, this queer stranger, seemed to be creeping 
upon me ... what is their meaning . . . what do they 
want .. . where will they end .. . will the money 
craze get them and dazzle them? .. . 

I drowsed again, and opened my eyes because some- 
one was looking at me. It was Mr. Bernard Lowe, my 
neighbor, come to condole with me... . Bernard 
Lowe, a sweet-faced, aging man, gazing upon me with 
kindly blinking eyes . . . Bernard Lowe . . . do you 
remember Berel of yesteryear, Berel Lotvin, the har- 
ness fixer in the Ludlow Street cellar . . . Berel 

‘Sleep ... rest... don’t let me disturb you, my 
friend.’’? His voice is gentle and pleasing. 

‘‘Just a little catnap, a fat man’s drowse,’’ I told 
him, clasping his hand. ‘‘And, how do you feel, 
Berel?’’ I asked. He responded with his ready good 
humor: ‘‘What a question to ask of a Christian 
Scientist !’’ 

And we both laughed. Funny: Berel is a Christian 
Scientist and a sincere one: always ready to give his 
personal testimony of its healing, pacifying won- 
ders. ... Once he told me his story in his unaffected 

[ 297 | 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


way. He was aman of considerable means. But Berel 
attributed his wealth to mere chance. Someone told 
him the automobiles were come to stay and multiply. 
He gave up the harness-fixing hole and opened a little 
tire repair shop in upper Broadway. It was a new 
industry: the firstcomer got the ploneer’s big chance. 
But what was more to the point, Berel’s good humor 
and dependable word won him respect and friends 
among the Gentiles. ... In time he grew to be the 
largest distributor of tires and accessories. . . . In the 
heyday of his prosperity he was laid low with diabetes, 
commonly called the Jewish sickness. He tried every 
famous doctor and cure. He was given up. ... Inher 
despair Berel’s wife called in a Christian Science 
healer. . . . And Berel said faith and love healed him 
and made him whole and well; best of all, it brought 
him equanimity and peace: being took on meaning. 
His simple exposition was very touching. 

We talked of his two boys, big young men, putting 
in their last years in Yale. Berel did not want them 
to go into business. He said business soils . . . he was 
encouraging his lads to give themselves to art and 
science .. . life was something more than mere com- 
peting for money... . 

‘‘Life speeds on . . . just think . . . soon you’ll be 
thinking of marrying off the boys,’’ I said. 

‘‘T don’t have to think about it at all... they’re 
thinking of it themselves. ... They used to go to 
church with me Sunday mornings when home. . . but 
now I notice they’re going to Rabbi Drucker’s New 
Temple. There’s a reason. . . . You know the beauti- 
ful daughters of Sid Raleigh . . . you know our old 
boy friend, Sam Rakowsky . . . he has two golden 

[ 298 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


beauties . . . like their mother . . . two clever girls, 
musicians, who detest their father’s songs... . Funny, 
he doesn’t mind what they think of his music. He’s 
sending them abroad to study under the masters. Well, 
my boys are after the golden beauties with the golden 
voices. ... Now, just to please me, they join me to 
ehurch Wednesday nights. . . . Well, there’s one thing 
I owe the lads, the right to choose their own wives and 
own beliefs. ... Good evening, Meyer, mamma will 
be looking for me for dinner. Good evening Hs 

T’ll not stay home tonight; I am too depressed... . 
T’ll slip out and telephone Margot ... Margot, my 
consolatrice. ... I interested Al Wolff in her. He 
put her in a show, a show I financed. She was an excel- 
lent investment. She was to the theatregoers the pert 
personification of the New York pleasure girl. The 
critics praised her vim and originality. All the artists 
wanted to paint her exquisite hands and feet. Her legs 
were a stage classic, having the shapeliness of a Greek 
vase. Al starred her in a big revue called ‘‘The 
Chicken of the Crossways’’—the crossways being 
Forty-second Street and Broadway. Then came the 
movies to tempt her with a big contract. Always she 
consulted her sweet daddy. She never forgot to be 
grateful, although she was occasionally unfaithful. 
The public adored her as their whimsical Margot of the 
Movies. ... Margot lived in a bizarre apartment 
chaperoned by an ancient duenna, an aunt created for 
my protection. . . . I can’t complain of Margot. She 
was always honest. She tried her best to keep her little 
affairs a secret from me... . But I knew she had love 
affairs lurking around the corner, and I tried not to 
think of this unpleasantness. . . . Sometimes when I 

f 299 ] 


HAUNCH PAUNCH AND JOWL 


stood over her I felt like a hulking pachyderm, gross, 
flesh-odorous, snorting over a white gazelle, a white 
gazelle with a burnished head... . 

Again I drowsed, and I seemed to have a pleasant 
dream that Margot was on my knee gently pinching 
my ear. But it was that confounded dog who had been 
placed on a cushion on a table near me. His little paw 
had been touching my ear.... Gretel is humming 
Sid Raleigh’s latest hit, a topical song he wrote for 
Margot. It is a hodgepodge of sentiment, mixing 
sunshine and rain, love and jealousy, joy and grief, 
laughter and tears, commonplaces for the masses, easy 
thoughts for the sluggish multitude. Margot had made 
its refrain famous, something about... ‘‘tell me, life, 
tell me, what’s it all about; tell me, life, what’s it all 
abonut?’?\... 

Gretel calls, ‘‘Come, Meyer, come and eat. I got 
something you like. Gedamfte brust und patate 
lahtkes.’’? (Potted breast and potato pancakes.) ... 
I heave my great bulk and waddle towards the dining 
room. ... Again Gretel sings ... ‘‘Tell me, life, tell 
me, what’s it all about; tell me, life, what’s it all 
AbONLe 7ye 

What—— 

It smells good. 

Gedamfte brust und patate lahtkes—— 


THE END 


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